Costs

Increased Cost to Ratepayers

Although Portland Water Bureau (PWB) paid $16 million in 2012 for a state-of-the-art UV design to meet the EPA mandate, they presented a radically more expensive filtration system to the Portland City Council as a solution. It will be you, the residential and business customer, who gets to pay that bill.

Portland currently has some of the highest water rates in the nation. 

PWB Accelerating Huge Rate Increases
The PWB has quietly budgeted increases of 7.4% year after year for the next 5 years, dramatically higher than the rate of inflation.

Expect Huge Increases to Your Water Bills
The PWB pitched the filtration plant at a cost ranging from $350 to $500 million. Now it's at $820 million and they haven't even started construction. Despite the rapid increases to rates that we've seen for the last 20 years, the monthly rates for citizens and businesses is going to skyrocket even faster.

In 2002, water rates were $14.60 per month for the average consumer. The average rate of inflation over that time was only 2.1% (shown in green) but the rise in water rates equals 6.2% (shown in blue) or 3x inflation! The Portland Water Bureau now projects the typical residential cost of water to be $81.53 per month by 2027 (shown in red) and they will go even higher as construction costs rise.

NOTE: These numbers reflect the water portion of the monthly bill and do not include the stormwater/sewer portion. (Those portions are going up too!)

Council Acknowledges Increases
The Portland City Council and Mayor Ted Wheeler have acknowledged that the costs of the construction will most certainly rise from these estimates.

Annual Maintenance Costs Double
The projected annual maintenance costs of the proposed filtration plant ($4 to $5 million) are virtually double the costs for a UV treatment solution ($2.5 million).