Water bills in our region continue to increase. There is no true “cost” of water, the price charged for water, often does not reflect its value or true cost. Not only inflation is the cause. Recent demand changes, trace amounts of PFAS and rising levels of salt in the source water, and the need to expand and maintain the physical infrastructure of the water treatment and distribution systems and pushed up the costs.
Fairfax Water announced its intention to raise their water
rates next spring as they do almost every winter. There will be, as usual, a
public hearing on Thursday, December 11, 2025, on the proposed rate increase
held at Fairfax Water’s main office at 8570 Executive Park Avenue in Fairfax.
This rate increase is part of their ongoing program to ensure that the water
infrastructure in Fairfax County is maintained. The proposed rate increase will
go into effect April 1, 2026. Visit Fairfaxwater.org/rates for
a complete list of rate and fee increases, but the bottom line is that the
average customer bill will increase by about 7.5%.
The need for infrastructure replacement is an issue that has
caused significant service problems and rate increases in other parts of the
Washington Metropolitan region. Fairfax Water Board of Directors have dedicated
funding to infrastructure maintenance and replacement for many years and has
forecast future capital needs for replacing water mains in the system. The Town
of Leesburg did not have a capital program in place.
This time around Fairfax Water is facing the need to build
the treatment to address the PFAS levels in the Reservoir as well as the
increasing inland salinization. In April
2024, the EPA announced the final national primary drinking water standards for
six poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Public water systems have until
2031 (as revised by the current administration) to implement solutions that
reduce these PFAS. Sampling has found that the Occoquan Reservoir exceeds the maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) for PFOA.
Compliance for PFOS is only marginally below the MCL. Additional treatment
processes will be required to comply with regulations and Fairfax Water
has stated that they will ensure their water meets these standards by the
regulatory date.
Fairfax Water hopes to use a new law, the Occoquan Reservoir
PFAS Reduction Program, signed by the Governor this past summer to identify and remove enough of the sources
of PFAS in the water that arrives at the Occoquan Reservoir to meet the EPA MCL
without requiring Fairfax Water and their rate payers to foot the bill for
compliance which at this point is estimated to be about $400,000,000 in capital
investment and $24,000,000 per year in operating costs. None of the treatment cost are in the current rate increase, but the expenses of the proactive planning process are.
In January of this year, Fairfax Water filed a
lawsuit in the Circuit Court of Fairfax County against several
manufacturers of aqueous film-forming foam chemicals. The lawsuit seeks to hold
companies responsible for PFAS contamination in the Occoquan Reservoir and
recover costs associated with water treatment and environmental remediation.
(There have been several spills of aqueous film-forming foam chemicals at
Manassas airport alone.)
Every time they propose to raise water rates, Fairfax Water
performs a comparison of the water costs throughout the Washington Metropolitan
region. I have tracked this information over the years, and was shocked to see
rates decrease this year, until I read the footnote. The comparison of rates as
of July 2017, 2018, 2019, 2022, and 2023 was based on a quarterly use of 18,000
gallons of residential water. In 2024 Fairfax Water choose to change
the quantity of water used for the comparison to 15,000. This not only appeared
to reduce rates in 2024, but also changed
some other aspects of the pricing. Last year I adjusted up the rates by 120% to
make them more or less comparable to previous years, but this year I did not.
Fairfax Water’s rate has returned to the lowest in the Washington metropolitan
region, but they choose the comparison rules. Fairfax Water sells water
to Prince William Service Authority, American Water, Manassas Park and others.
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| from Fairfax Water data |
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