CHJA to vote on planned rate hikes
A Washington County judge decided Friday against stopping another proposed rate increase in the bills of the Canonsburg-Houston Joint Authority’s customers before the authority votes on the new rates next week.
Common Pleas Judge Michael J. Lucas denied a request for a preliminary injunction against a series of additional yearly increases the authority is expected to approve at a Jan. 24 meeting, declining to intervene in the board’s affairs before members make their decision.
He did grant a request that he issue a preliminary injunction against a decision by the authority to stop granting new tap-ins for customers, finding that the authority didn’t have the legal authority to implement it.
Three townships – Chartiers, Cecil and North Strabane – and the local municipal authorities for Cecil and North Strabane brought the case this week in a bid to block the planned rate increase.
The litigation – in which the other entities accuse CHJA of breach of contract and seek permanent injunctions stopping the proposed increase and the three-month-old tapping ban – touches on larger questions about the running of CHJA.
“What has caused the ire of all five municipal entities is there has been misinformation and inconsistent information that their engineers have relied on,” said their lead attorney, Romel Nicholas, following Friday’s proceeding.
Officials from three “tributaries” allege CHJA can’t provide an adequate basis for the additional money it’s seeking from customers. They also claim the tapping ban is based on information about the plant’s capacity that CHJA, itself, has contradicted in its own report.
CHJA operates a treatment plant in Cecil. Its area includes the equivalent of more than 17,600 households.
Nicholas expects to come back to ask Lucas to approve another preliminary injunction request if the authority does approve the new rates as expected. Another hearing is scheduled for that purpose and to hear further testimony Feb. 1.
Nicholas also said the tapping ban will stymie new development in the service area. He wrote in court papers that CHJA’s own engineers have contradicted their own supposed findings that the plant is at hydraulic capacity.
For example, a report CHJA submitted to the state Department of Environmental Protection last year allegedly showed “more than sufficient capacity to process the anticipated hydraulic flow through 2022,” according to court papers.
Customers’ bills are already growing under a five-year series of increases the authority approved in 2016 to fund a $50.2 million bond issue for plant upgrades.
But the new plan would mean even higher rates. If adopted, it would raise rates from $5.76 per 1,000 gallons to $6.97 this year. Instead of $6.16 next year, it would be $7.46. In 2020, customers would pay $7.98 for 1,000 gallons instead of the $6.59 they’ll have to pay in the existing schedule.
CHJA proposed those increases after rescinding a more aggressive increase the board approved in April to cover debt service on a new $22.4 million bond issue, which it has postponed.
It later agreed to rescind that increase, which would have basically doubled customers’ bills, amid a similar challenge.
Canonsburg and Houston boroughs – which are also part of that area and appoint the members of the authority board – aren’t participating in the litigation.
Attorney Jack Cambest, who represents CHJA, said the authority could face higher interest rates as it waits.
“They’re increasing,” he said. “They’re not decreasing.”
He said the amount the authority is now trying to borrow reflects a “guesstimate of what it will cost to do the next phase” of work on the plant.
Nicholas overheard him, and said his clients “can’t live with ‘guesstimates.'”
“Across the board,” he added later, “I think elected officials would agree that it’s fiscally irresponsible not to challenge this.”