MARIETTA - Expect more water, sewer and electric rate hikes from the Marietta Board of Lights and Water come January, BLW general manager Bob Lewis told the City Council on Monday.

Lewis said the Cobb County Marietta Water Authority, from which the BLW buys its water, plans to raise water costs by 11.5 percent in January, which represents about a 5 percent rate increase for BLW customers.

"That's just the cost of the water," Lewis said, noting the BLW also has such expenses as maintaining its water lines and additional capital investments.

Lewis expects the Cobb Water System to raise sewer costs by 4 percent, which means a 2 percent hike in sewer rates for BLW customers.

And electric rates are expected to rise by 5.5 percent for ratepayers in January, Lewis said.

The numbers are all projections and have yet to be finalized.

Neither Mayor Steve Tumlin nor any of the council members at Monday's meeting objected to news of the proposed rate hikes.

Just two months ago, the BLW, with council authorization, raised water and sewer rates by 8 percent each and electric rates by 5.9 percent.

Yet BLW customers shouldn't be surprised to see annual rate increases "well into the future," Lewis said.

"I think because of the environmental regulations that are in place in this country today as it relates to the Clean Water Act, as it relates to the sale of water and sewer services, as well as electricity, we're having to make investments that are necessary to clean up our water and to make our power plants pollute less," Lewis said.

"And therefore, it's going to cost money. It costs money to make those things happen. And so we would anticipate we're going to see annual cost increases well into the future. It's driven primary by environmental regulations at both the state and federal level for these commodities that we buy and resell to our customers," he said.

The city was "lulled to sleep" by not having an electric rate increase between 2004 and 2009. Part of that was because the city was making money on the wholesale market place with its surplus energy, he said.

"Because the market is so soft, because of the economic conditions in the country, the demand for energy is down and the supply is still up, so we're not reaping the same dollars that we were in the past," he said.

Lewis said the BLW's net cash flow for calendar year 2009 was $2.7 million less than it was in 2008.

The BLW, which has 45,000 electric customers and 18,000 water and sewer customers, makes a contribution to the city's general fund of $11 million each year. Additional millage to bring in $11 million would be 3.97 mills, meaning the city's current millage rate of 2.78 mills would need to jump to 6.75 mills without the BLW contribution, City Manager Bill Bruton said.