Towamencin sees breakdown of consumption-based sewer rates

After nearly five years of debates over the township’s sewer system, could Towamencin make a change to the way they bill for using it?

Township officials heard details last week on a possible change to sewer bills, studying how costs would change if users are billed by how much capacity they use instead of a flat fee.

“There’s no recommendation — you folks asked us to look at various scenarios,” said township sewer engineer Bill Dingman

Sewer rates were at the center of the township’s long-running sewer sale debate, which started with a study in 2020, grew into a series of public presentations and pushback from residents in 2021, then resulted in a vote by four of the five supervisors at the time to sell the system in May 2022.

Sale opponents took the board to court to try to stop the sale, citing steep rate hikes projected by the proposed buyer and revenues going to shareholders instead of local infrastructure, then won a series of votes establishing a government study commission and then a new township charter in 2023 that they argued made the sale illegal, and in August 2024 buyer PA American Water pulled out of the sale agreement.

When the sewer sale debate started, residents were charged a flat rate of $375 per year that had been unchanged since 2008, and sale advocates argued that the rates would need to increase sharply in future years to cover needed infrastructure upgrades and regulatory mandates, while the sale proceeds could be used to pay down debt, lower taxes, and generate revenue; sale opponents said those rates could rise to well over $1,000 per year under a private owner to cover earnings for shareholders and/or bonuses for corporate executives, and that actual rates charged by the buyer could rise higher and faster than projected rates shown to the board and public.    

As that debate raged, the supervisors approved multiple rate hikes, bringing the rate from $375 to $450 per year starting in 2022, then raising it again to $590 starting in 2024. And as the sewer sale debate continued, residents pushed for several changes to how it’s administered, asking the board to look into ways to spread the payments over multiple installments — now possible with a new billing platform adopted in summer 2024 — and ways to bill users based on how much they consume rather than the flat fee. In January, the board tasked the engineer with studying the specifics.

Engineer breaks down stats

On May 14, the engineer presented details, based on sewer and water consumption data from 2023 plus the flat sewer rate implemented in 2024, Dingman told the board. Residential customers are currently billed on a flat rate, while nonresidential uses are billed based on consumption. To perform the study, the sewer engineer said, he first looked at total sewer expenses for 2023, and broke down the roughly 28 percent directly related to sewer flow, compared to the remainder that were fixed costs.

“If you look at consumption billing, and try to parallel that to your expenses, you’d be looking at 28 percent of your bill related to consumption and 72 percent related to a flat rate system,” he said.

Currently, 41 percent of the township’s sewer flow is from residential customers, 53 percent from nonresidential, and 6 percent from other municipalities, which is generally residential, the sewer engineer said. The average residential customer uses 134 gallons per day, and 50 percent of customers use 143 gallons or more, and 50 percent less, he said. Under the current flat rate, 41 percent of the flow volume comes from residential usage, but that customer base pays 51 percent of all expenses, while nonresidential uses pay 44 percent and other municipalities 5 percent, “which is similar to their flow.”

“So the residential base is paying more than their share when you look at it under just a consumption basis,” Dingman said.

    Sewer engineer Bill Dingman, inset, presents to Towamencin’s supervisors a chart comparing the current flat $590 annual sewer fee with various rate schedules based on sewer consumption based on gallons per day, during the board’s May 14, 2025 meeting. (Screenshot of meeting video)
  

Switching to a 100 percent consumption-based fee would shift that number up to 42 percent of bills paid by residential customers, compared to the current 41 percent, while for nonresidential, the number would increase to 54 percent from the current 53 percent. Setting up a fee structure to cover flow-related expenses based on consumption would drop the residential customers to 49 percent of expenses, and increase the nonresidential up to 46 percent, he said.

“There’s not a lot of shifting, depending on where you go with it, unless you shift to 100 percent and then there’s a significant shift into the customer class that would be paying portions of your bill,” Dingman said.

The engineer then showed a chart, starting with the current flat fee of $590 per year, then breaking down cost comparisons under various rate schedules. Under a 100 percent consumption billing structure, the 33 percent of customers who use less than 100 gallons per day would pay a bill of $366, those who use the average of 134 gallons per day would pay $491, those who use the 50 percent average of 143 gallons per day would pay $524, the 20 percent who use more than 200 gallons per day would pay $733, and the five percent who use more than 300 gallons per day would pay a $1,099 annual bill, per the engineer.

“Under the flat rate, whether you use less than 100 gallons a day or you use more than 300 gallons a day, you pay $590,” Dingman said.

“If you go to 100 percent consumption billing, the folks that use 100 gallons per day or less, which is 33 percent of your residential base, their bill would drop to $366, and the 20 percent of the customers who use more than 200 gallons a day, their bill would go up to $733. So you’d be shifting: the people who use less, pay less, the people who use more pay more,” he said.

Under a 50/50 split balancing the flow and fixed costs, that lowest volume user below 100 gallons per day would pay a bill of $477, the 50 percent user with 143 gallons per day would pay $556, and the highest volume user over 300 gallons per day would pay a bill of $843, according to the sewer engineer. Balancing the costs at the 28 percent flow versus 72 percent fixed ratio would increase the numbers: the below-100 user would pay $526, the 143-gallon-per-day user would pay $570, and the 300-plus-gallon user would pay $731.

“The $731 is for 300 gallons a day; anything above that, you’d go even higher,” he said.

Plenty of questions

Supervisor Kristin Warner asked how the 28 versus 72 percent ratio was calculated, and Dingman said that was broken down in documents provided to the board, looking at all sewer related expenses for both the township and its municipal authority: electricity and chemical usage are flow related, while township crews that work on manholes are not flow-based expenses so they fall under the fixed cost category.

“It’s open for interpretation, don’t get me wrong, there’s no absolute right or wrong on those percentages, but it was based on our knowledge of the system,” Dingman said.

Supervisor Kofi Osei, who was elected in 2023 after leading the ‘Towamencin NOPE’ group that opposed the sewer sale, asked how nonresidential customers are billed, and Dingman said they’re currently billed based on consumption now, and if they use under 200 gallons per day, they pay the flat $590 fee.

“What we did find is that the typical residential customer is not using 200 gallons per day. There is an issue associated with that, if you look at the $590 compared to the average,” Dingman said.

Warner asked if the commercial bills were similar to other nearby townships, and Dingman said they were, noting that Lansdale bills residents based on consumption plus a small fixed fee, while PECO also bills based on consumption plus a flat fee.

“Those utilities are more, I’ll say 95 percent consumption, and maybe five percent is a service fee,” he said.

Supervisors Chair Joyce Snyder asked if the township would need to add or install meters in order to bill based on consumption, and Dingman said the numbers he studied were based on water consumption calculated from existing meters, with some residential communities using “master meters” such as condo complexes that measure their entire development at once.

“There’s certain condo associations, Towamencin Condos is one, that have master meters — just two, I think, for the entire community. My recollection is that the community uses about 167 gallons per day per unit, when you look at the master” meters, he said.

“Chatham Village has meters at each of the buildings, and their usage is about 100 gallons per day. So you can see, there’s a significant difference, even in the condo associations that have master meters, but one’s out at Bustard Road, the other’s at the building. That’s the way it was set up, years ago,” Dingman said.

During the sewer sale debate, the township did examine the cost of adding individual meters for such communities, and Wilson said he recalled an estimated cost of about $1 million to do so at the Towamencin condos. Warner then asked if those numbers vary over the time of year, such as water usage for pools over the summer, and Dingman said that could be addressed.

“If you really want to get into consumption, you’d want to get into all of those details. Are you going to account for the pools, account for watering lawns, are you going to do something with your billing system to account for those things?” he said.

    

Osei said he was “glad we did” the study, but said he thought “it would be more effort to switch, than keep it the way it is,” then noted that any such change wouldn’t account for residents who use wells for water, and/or septic systems: “I just don’t think it’s worth switching, but I’m glad we looked at it.”

Warner countered that she saw a large difference for certain customers: “I think the single person, older, especially living in a small condo, not using much water, would disagree with you.”

“Would they disagree if we have to spend $1 million to put meters in their condo? I’m saying that discussion is not worth it, for 28 percent,” Osei said.

Wilson said he thought consumption-based billing was the fairest way to do so, and Osei said he thought the $1 million-plus to add meters, plus the costs of studies,s were not worth the expense. Dingman added that customers who use wells could also in theory be billed based on the average or mean usage numbers, and said he saw “not a big savings, on the low side,” under the combo model that would drop the $590 bill down to $526 for the lowest user class, but a big impact for the biggest users.

“The high side, those five percent of the folks that are using more than 300 gallons a day, could see a significant change in their bill,” from the current $590 up to $731 under the split model or as high as $1,099 under the fully consumption-based model, Dingman said.

Osei said he wanted to avoid stories like those he heard during the sewer sale debate, of residents going to extreme lengths to reduce or avoid flushing due to high sewer bills.

“There was a story of one of the townships that sold to Aqua, and they had the grandma peeing in her yard to save money on water. I don’t think we should be encouraging that behavior when it’s not necessarily good for the sewer system either,” Osei said.

“For a $54 savings for the 100 gallons, it doesn’t seem worth doing all these extra studies and changing our billing,” he said.

Warner pointed out that the $590 fee may not stay flat, and Osei said the studies could be revisited if that rate increases again. New supervisor Amer Barghouth asked how much of the capacity of the township’s sewer plant currently gets used, and Dingman said “You’re way under capacity,” using about 3.5 million gallons per day in 2023, with the plant rated at about 6.5million gallons per day total capacity, and those numbers fluctuating based on infiltration from leakage in aged pipelines throughout the system.

“I’m sympathetic to your view: the difference between the $366 for the lower end, all the way up to what they’re currently paying, it’s pretty substantial. And those are the houses that consume the least,” Barghouth said. “I don’t want to just dismiss that side. I see that point.”

Warner said she could see the topic coming up again soon for further discussion, possibly as soon as budget season this fall.

“It’s $590 now, but could be $750 in the next few years, and that could make a big difference for a smaller household,” she said.

Residents have their say

Resident Lisa Patriarca said she recalled seeing a potential sewer buyer, PA American Water, billing based on consumption, but saw a difference between water and sewer usage.

“Every drop of water that comes out of our faucet does not go down into our sewer system. I have a lot of plants in my home. I put bottles underneath my faucet, turn my faucet on, and the water drips directly into my bottles. It doesn’t go into my sink, it goes into my plants,” she said.

“If I use 20 gallons of water a week to water my plants, that water’s not going in my sewer. So why should I have to pay for that water again? It just makes no sense. You’re double dipping: you’re making us pay for water, and then to pay sewer rates based on our (water) consumption? Nobody wants this additional tax,” Patriarca said.

Resident Robert Lowe said he agrees with Osei: he uses a well, and saw added expenses for homeowners such as himself

“You’d have to administer the consumption system, which means putting in meters, which means whatever you have to do to determine every home and how much they use. It seems like that would cost a lot of money too, in addition to putting in all of the meters,” he said.

Rich Costlow added another consideration: what if family members move into, or out of, a home?

“In general, I’m a believer in ‘If you use it, you pay for it.’ If you’re using over 300 gallons a day, your water bill ought to be higher. Coming from a household of now two people, instead of more when my kids were home, it just seems unfair for people who use less to be subsidizing people who use more,” he said.

“I think there needs to be a compromise in here somewhere, that just because we can’t find a way (to calculate usage) for people who are using less water, subsidizing the people who are using more,” Costlow said.

Osei then cited the 72 to 28 percent fixed to variable ratio: “It seems like this is way more effort than it’s worth, and not actually fair in a way that’s precise,” he said. “We’re going to spend all this money to make this saving system, and we’re only saving the best household $50? I just don’t think that’s worth it. I like seeing these numbers in front of me, but now that I see the numbers, I just don’t think we should change.”

Resident Joe Silverman said he uses several wells, and agrees with Osei: “Why complicate simplicity? Leave it the way it is. $590, it’s fine, if you use a little more or a little less. Keep it simple, and forget all this.”

No formal action was taken after the discussion.

Towamencin’s supervisors next meet at 7 p.m. on May 28 at the township administration building, 1090 Troxel Road. For more information, visit www.Towamencin.org.

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