EBMUD is investing in the complex infrastructure that brings you high-quality tap water and protects San Francisco Bay with outstanding wastewater treatment.
Our next two-year budget aims to maintain these critical, yet aging systems. We will continue to rehabilitate pipelines, and upgrade the water treatment plants, tanks, reservoirs, and wastewater facilities that serve you every minute of every day.
Focused on critical infrastructure
Over the next two years and beyond, our skilled staff will inspect and repair the aqueducts and tunnels that carry pristine Mokelumne River water 90 miles to the East Bay.
We’ll upgrade computer, instrumentation and structural support systems, and build new steel water storage tanks.
We’ll improve pumping and treatment plants, and replace more miles of aging water mains each year.
We also will increase preventative maintenance to reduce leaks and emergency main breaks by adding more skilled staff to reduce overtime.
And we’ll be at work repairing our large sewer collection interceptors, wastewater treatment and odor control systems.
Financial stewardship
As a public, not-for-profit agency, we work hard to make smart decisions about how to use your dollars. Through cost-savings, we set aside – and now will use – Rate Stabilization Funds to keep rates manageable as we recover from drought.
Each year, we become more efficient energy users. We also generate and sell hydroelectric, solar and biogas energy to offset costs, and we’re more innovative with how we maintain and operate our systems. Additionally, we protect the watershed lands that, in turn, protect your drinking water.
Whether we deliver one gallon of water or 130 million gallons, the infrastructure that delivers this resource and treats our waste must be maintained. Our nearly 2,000 employees do this vital work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Join us as we head into the next era of EBMUD’s nearly century-old mission to provide reliable, great-tasting, high-quality water today and for future generations.
How will this affect my bill?
To support these critical facility investments, EBMUD is proposing rate increases. These increases will be less than $5 per month for water and less than $1 for wastewater for an average household using 200 gallons per day.
Effective July 12, 2017
Water charges
9.25%
Wastewater charges
5%
Effective July 1, 2018
Water charges
9%
Wastewater charges
5%
Sample Impacts on Single Family Monthly Charge
Residential Service
Current Rates
Proposed Rates (As of July 1, 2017)
Increase
Proposed Rates (As of July 1, 2018)
Increase
Water Average - 8 units (200 gallons per day)
$47.15
$51.49
$4.34
$56.12
$4.63
Wastewater Treatment Average - 6 units (150 gallons per day) *
$19.93
$20.89
$0.96
$21.95
$1.06
* EBMUD Wastewater Treatment for customers in Albany, Berkeley, El Cerrito, Emeryville, Kensington, Oakland, Piedmont, and parts of Richmond and is collected on the EBMUD water bill.
Renew. Reinvest. Ready.
At EBMUD, our staff is constantly on the move to upgrade and rehabilitate our vital water mains. With 4,200 miles of pipe, we are committed to increasing the number of miles of pipe we replace each year. By this summer, we’ll have met our year’s goal to replace 15 miles of pipe by using an innovative technology that gives an old pipe a new life.
We have test-driven this trenchless technology in Richmond, San Pablo and Walnut Creek with great results. This new method – one of many new ways EBMUD is investing your dollars in this system – allows us to thread a structural liner into an old pipe, basically rebuilding the pipe from the inside out. Like a snake shedding old skin for new, this technology is faster than conventional pipe installation and less disruptive to neighborhoods, making it a definite contender for the future of our system in the East Bay.
Looking forward, we’ll be the first in the nation to try out a new-to-the-market lightweight plastic pipe that’s so innovative, Cornell University wants to study it with us. Now that’s what we call ground-breaking technology.
