It’s a topic that’s not typically dinner discussion, but, still it’s valuable to understand how you are charged for wastewater services on your monthly utility bill…and how you can keep that bill as low as possible. Jose Provencio, Las Cruces Utilities (LCU) business services administrator, explains, “Wastewater flow is not metered from your home or small commercial business. Instead, LCU uses industry standards to capture a sense of what that output would be.”
LCU charges for managing and processing wastewater by taking the “winter quarter” water usage, which likely is the lowest water use of the year (since swamp coolers are not running, and therefore not using water to cool your home or business, and landscape watering should be virtually nonexistent or very, very low during the winter). Then, LCU calculates 90% of that low wintertime monthly water usage and uses that number as a basis to charge customers all year long for piping, pumping, and processing wastewater.
The treated and disinfected wastewater is released as clean effluent back into the Rio Grande River or used as irrigation water for public spaces. At the Jacob A. Hands Wastewater Treatment Facility, 3.3 billion gallons of wastewater is processed every year. At the East Mesa Water Reclamation Facility approximately 700,000 gallons per day is treated and used for irrigation of green space on the east side of town, and at the West Mesa Industrial Park Wastewater Treatment Facility approximately 150,000 gallons of wastewater is treated every day.
How your wastewater bill is calculated:
- LCU takes the measured potable water use from three months: December, January, and February (the winter quarter);
- That number is divided by 3 to determine the average monthly water use during this period;
- That number is multiplied by .90, to set the consumption level to bill wastewater volumetric charges for residential and small commercial business.
A helpful method to manage your bill: homeowners should make sure that unnecessary landscape irrigation does not occur during the winter quarter months. That way only indoor water use is measured and your wastewater bill accurately reflects sewer water that is treated through the wastewater system.
Provencio says, “If customers keep an eye on water usage, for example on lawns that may not be needing as much water during the winter months, it’ll manage their water and especially their wastewater bill for the year.”
Submitted by Las Cruces Utilities at 528-3500 from 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Las Cruces Utilities provides GAS – WATER – WASTEWATER – SOLID WASTE services to approximately 100,000 Las Cruces residents and businesses.