White Plains Fights NYC Water Costs

White Plains will once again enter into a consortium with several local municipalities to fight the high cost of water from New York City. The White Plains Common Council recently agreed to approve an amount not to exceed $30,000 to chip in for the consortium to hire a lawyer.

“The retention of this law firm has proved to be a good value for White Plains water rate payers in the past,” said Councilwoman Beth Smayda, at the Oct. 3 White Plains Common Council meeting.

White Plains originally joined the consortium in 1997 to fight New York City on its methodology for calculating the cost of water. Smayda said that the consortium has been consistently successful, and recently saved White Plains $350,000.

“When they [New York City] raise their rates, they are pretty much just passing that to water rate payers, although we are not just passing that along without looking at how those are determined, and if they are calculated correctly,” said Smayda.

About 95 percent of the water White Plains uses comes from the New York City Water Supply System. According to White Plains Public Works Commissioner Bud Nicoletti, the cost for White Plains to buy water from New York City has risen about 66 percent in the last five years.

White Plains is charged more than twice the base rate for water when the amount of water White Plains uses exceeds New York City's per capita consumption, which is about 120 to 125 gal/day/person. White Plains uses about 170 gal/day/person. Nicoletti says the consortium is responsible for fending off increases of three to 3.5 times more for excess per capita overages. Excess per capita costs are expected to exceed $1.1 million this year in White Plains.

White Plains’ gripe with how New York City calculates overages is that it only takes residential uses into account, leaving out hospitals, dormitories and other facilities that use water. New York City calculates its excess per capita amounts by taking the amount of water they use, and dividing that number by the population count.

“We don’t get credit for non-residential water consumption,” said Nicoletti.

Nicoletti says that during the winter months, White Plains’ excess per captia consumption varies, and may even be lower than New York City—but this changes around April when people start to use more water.

 “This is because for example, we have irrigation, we have pools, we have car washes,” said Councilwoman Milagros Lecuona, on Oct. 3. “All these items that residents of New York City don’t have.”

To ensure that the cost of water is equitably distributed to everyone who uses it, White Plains charges non-residential institutions at a different rate than residential institutions.

“We’re fortunate that water rates [what White Plains charges its residents, businesses and other institutions] are among the lowest in Westchester,” said Karen Pasquale, senior advisor to Mayor Tom Roach.

“But at the same time, that should not be an excuse for wasting water. We like to remind folks that conservation is very important.  It affects everyone as a whole when that increased water consumption is spread out.”

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