$4,500 Sewer Fee

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Residents of an unincorporated area of Nevada County, CA, are facing an enormous hike in their sewer rates, which now amount to $4,500 a year per homeowner. According to one calculation, residents of the Cascade Shores subdivision will now pay an eye-popping $3 per flush. Put another way, pouring water down the drain costs 10 times as much as it does to put it in your glass.

Cascade Shores is an unincorporated subdivision, which one local politico identified as “a perfect example” of urban sprawl. One aspect of unincorporated areas that homebuyers find attractive is that homeowners can avoid paying city taxes. There also is no city “transfer tax”—a major part of closing costs that can be several thousand dollars. The flip side, though, is that unincorporated areas don’t have city departments to handle issues like water treatment. Unlike residents of cities, people who live in unincorporated areas pay for their own services like trash and sewage treatment, and the cost of community blunders falls upon fewer residents, which can make for nasty surprises like this.

The problem began when Cascade Shores’ sewer lines broke in May 2005, causing raw sewage to—one might say—cascade into a nearby creek for nine days. California’s water cops—the Regional Water Control Quality Board—slapped the county with a $574,000 fine, and this has been passed onto the subdivision. It turned out that the subdivision had tried to economize by leaving its plant abandoned for all but 16 hours a week and so it couldn’t address the problem for many days during which the creek was being polluted. Subsequently, tighter rules on water quality have forced the community to rebuild the entire plant if it is to comply with new state and federal clean water regulations.

As of now, Cascade Shores is refusing to pay the fee at the risk of running up thousands of dollars a day as the fine goes unpaid. But unfortunately for Cascade Shores’ homeowners, who appreciate the advantages of opting out of city services, alongside the potential savings comes the risk of flushing money down the drain.

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