Mayor Bill Peduto wants to empanel a financial and legal advisory team to strengthen the services of the beleaguered Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority.
The announcement came Friday, a day after PWSA lifted a flush-and-boil advisory that affected some 100,000 Pittsburghers. City Council has called on state officials to look into the authority. Mr. Peduto said he supports that effort.
“The City of Pittsburgh owns the water and sewer system that was leased to the PWSA decades ago. It’s time to re-evaluate this structure,” Mr. Peduto said in a statement. “After systemic problems with inadequate billing, lead in our service lines and this week’s flush-and-boil-water advisory, the city has the duty to find new ways to improve our water services and create the safe, effective and sustainable water authority our residents deserve.”
Mr. Peduto said at a news conference Thursday to announce the end of the boil-water advisory that it might be financially desirable to split water and sewer operations. He said there may be an opportunity to sell excess water and use that revenue to pay for repairs to the system’s aging infrastructure.
"We have had conversations for the past six or eight months over what some ideas of that structure could look like," he said. “The ultimate goal would be the investment back into this authority [that] has been neglected for well over a decade.”
City officials Friday issued a request for proposals to develop the advisory team, according to the mayor’s office. The administration said the group will manage evaluations of a “possible restructuring of the PWSA to enhance water and sewer service delivery.”
One option is a public-private partnership that would jointly manage some authority operations, Mr. Peduto’s office said.
But Allegheny County Controller Chelsa Wagner voiced strong opposition to any proposal that would privatize or create a private partnership.
“I am deeply troubled by Mayor Peduto’s announcement today that he plans to to partially privatize and further outsource control of our most basic public resource: Water,” Ms. Wagner said in a statement Friday afternoon. “I and thousands of Pittsburgh residents will not be distracted from this abdication of responsibility by smoke and mirrors.
“The city continues to duck and hide in the face of our water crisis,” she said. “This ducking and hiding, epitomized by today’s announcement, is an affront to Pittsburgh residents and PWSA customers, who continue to go day to day without safe water.”
Kevin Acklin, Mr. Peduto’s chief of staff, said privatization is not under consideration; rather, the city will seek ways to remake and improve the existing publicly owned system.
“For over 20 years, the PWSA has accrued almost a billion dollars in debt and has hundreds of millions in deferred infrastructure maintenance,” he said in an emailed statement. “The status quo will result in skyrocketing water rates and declining water quality. We are setting aside politics and are seeking an open, transparent and public process to professionally rebuild the type of water and sewer authority the residents of our city deserve."
PWSA officials said in a statement that they "fully support" the advisory effort. They also said they support city requests that state Auditor General Eugene DePasquale and Attorney General Josh Shapiro review the authority.
Mr. DePasquale has said his office could audit PWSA only at the authority's own invitation. PWSA spokesman Will Pickering said Friday that the authority would make such a request.
"The employees, contractors and board of PWSA are working very hard to address the problems we face and welcome all of the support we can get in evaluating and fixing the authority's operations," the PWSA statement said.
Advisory team members also will study financial matters, work with residents and recommend ways for the city to "maximize public control in any partnership," according to Mr. Peduto's office.
“While not presently considering a full privatization, nor a third-party arrangement similar to the previous arrangement with Veolia, we are seeking a full financial and operations partner,” Mr. Acklin said. “With disintegrating water infrastructure, massive debt problems and repeated failures in customer service and billing issues, deep changes to the PWSA are obviously necessary.”
The administration said it hopes to have an advisory team hired by the end of the month.
Adam Smeltz: 412-263-2625, asmeltz@post-gazette.com, @asmeltz. Don Hopey: dhopey@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1983, or on Twitter @donhopey
First Published: February 3, 2017, 5:32 p.m.
Updated: February 4, 2017, 4:57 a.m.
