The hits just keep coming for island residents who live in unincorporated Indian River County.

Residents were still grumbling about shelling out for universal curbside trash pickup when they found out they will also see increased fees on their annual property tax bills over the next five years to cover higher landfill operating costs.

Now – starting this month – county water customers on the island south of Vero Beach and north of Indian River Shores will have to absorb a 10-percent increase in their water consumption fees. This is on top of a 19-percent increase that went into effect on Jan. 1.

Last year, the average county water customer, using about 4,000 gallons per month, paid $50.57 per month. The Jan. 1 increase raised the average bill to $60.44, and the current increase, which went into effect Oct. 1, will bump the figure up to $67.70 per month, according to county officials.

That amounts to about $200 more per year for the average customer on the island and mainland, and quite a bit more for people with larger houses and lawns, but county officials say it can’t be helped.

“We have been depleting our cash reserves just to maintain our system and doing the bare necessity of repairs,” said Sean Lieske, the county’s director of utility services. “We were digging ourselves a hole by not keeping up with inflation and increases in construction costs. Every year, we were getting further and further behind.”

Had the utility department continued without raising rates, it would have run out of reserves by 2027, Lieske added. “You can’t continue on that trajectory, or you’ll get yourself into hot water – no pun intended.”

The good news for county water customers is they will still be paying slightly less than Vero Beach residents for the same amount of water – $67.70 compared to $69.79 for average usage – according to West Palm Beach-based environmental consulting firm Stantec, which compared the county’s water usage rates to the rates of more than a dozen neighboring communities. Both numbers are among the lowest on the Treasure Coast.

From 1999 to 2019, the county made no water rate adjustments, utility department finance manager Bryan Beavers told commissioners in September. From 2019 through 2024, the county was locked in by ordinance to no more than a 3-percent annual increase, he said.

“So, for 25 years our rate increases amounted to only 12 percent. During that same period, the national average for water and wastewater rates increased 210 percent,” Beavers said.

Besides higher chemical and labor costs to operate the utility, the increases this year were driven by the need to replace water infrastructure – such as old, decaying pipes – and upgrade the county’s three water reclamation facilities and two water production plants, Lieske said.

“These are things that have to be routinely replaced,” Lieske said. “Like any infrastructure, they don’t last forever, just as a homeowner needs to replace an air conditioner or water heater. Many of these projects had been deferred for a long time.”

In May, commissioners agreed to expand the county’s Urban Service Boundary along a stretch of Oslo Road, enlarging the area where the county will be on the hook to provide water and sewer lines for future residential and commercial development.

The county is working on an Integrated Water Master Plan to guide development of its drinking water, wastewater and reuse systems for the next 20 years. When that plan is complete, “we’ll come back to reevaluate our rates to make sure they’re structured in a way that we can implement the plan,” Lieske said. The 2025 rate increases “should get the county back on track, financially, to do what’s necessary to maintain the system as the county continues to grow.”