Water drips from an Upstate man's faucet. (File/FOX Carolina)WELLFORD, SC (FOX Carolina) -
Customers in one Upstate town are watching their sewer bills skyrocket.
Wellford city officials said it's what has to happen so they can break even on their own costs.
One woman in Wellford, who wanted to remain anonymous, said her sewer bill is four times what it used to be. The increase makes sense because until March of this year, sewer bills were at a fixed rate.
Wellford Mayor Tommy Watson said that in January the city had a public hearing about the rate increases. He said creating a new pay scale was the only way to have the sewer system pay for itself because the revenue made from the fixed rate was nowhere near the funds the city needed to treat the sewage.
Watson said now that people are paying for how much water they're using versus that fixed rate, they're noticing it more when they water their grass or if they've got leaky faucets or plumbing issues, because it's costing them more
"We were bringing in somewhere around $11,000 a month and we're paying out somewhere around $21,000 to $22,000 a month, and that was a big issue. We were going further behind on our sewer system," Watson said.
Watson said the sewer system is indebted, not to the city of Lyman, as some people may think, but to the bonds the city took out in the late 80s and early 2000s to first build the system and then to expand the system.
Watson said residents can come to the city if they're expecting to use a lot of water for something in particular, like filling a pool or for lawn work, so that they won't be charged the sewage costs for it.
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