BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) - Over a dozen concerned Birmingham Water Works customers came out to a town hall Wednesday night to get answers from the board on the proposed water rate increase.
The town hall was hosted by Jefferson County Commissioner Sheila Tyson, who says forums like these need to be held 4 to 5 times a year.
Many people were looking for understanding and clarification. Last Monday, the BWWB held a public hearing on the rate increase but people could only speak for three minutes and questions could not be answered by the board at that time so the town hall aimed to remedy that.
“I talked to the citizens [Wednesday night] and they said that they didn’t like the answers, but they got the correct answers," Tyson said. "That’s all they wanted.”
One of the biggest questions on many BWW customers’ minds is this:
"When will this end?" a customer in attendance asked. "Because it keeps going on and it appears to us that somebody has figured out a way to put this burden on the people so that we can take care of all of this."
Annual increases will continue for the next three decades. Tyson says a forty year deal is in place that raises the water rates each year.
"This is a life sentence for us. There’s nothing we can do," Oxmoor resident Gary Lavender said. "The county has got out of bankruptcy but the bankruptcy part has been dropped on the citizens of Jefferson County.”
The BWWB says the rate increase in 2025 would raise the average customer’s bill by $2.14.
"When you raise the height, it may seem minimal, but the working poor are struggling to survive,” one woman in the town hall said.
The BWWB says the money from the rate increase would go towards many different things to include operation costs for equipment, chemicals and labor, pipeline replacement projects to better water flow, Lake Purdy dam and water tank rehabilitation and technology upgrades.
"It’s expensive to produce water, and very large water system, and the way we treat our water, the cost of that is such that it’s going to be an increase,” BWWB interim general manager Darryl Jones said.
The BWWB is scheduled to vote on the budget and proposed rate increase Novemeber 20.