Representatives of water and sewer districts serving Burien briefed city council members on June 26 about potential impacts that annexation of North Highline by either Burien or Seattle could have on their customers.

If Seattle annexes all of North Highline, customers served by Water District 20, Southwest Suburban Sewer District and ValVue Sewer District could experience negative impacts, lawmakers were told.

According to Dick Swab, general manager of Water District 20, if Seattle annexes the unincorporated area Seattle Public Utilities would assume the Water District 20 service area currently in North Highline.

He noted that if Seattle partially annexes the North Highline area, Water District 20 would loose about 1,700 customers and rates would go up approximately 11 percent.

Under full annexation by Seattle, Swab continued, Seattle Public Utilities would assume Water District 20 south to Southwest 128th Street. In that event, Water District 20 would loose up to 5,300 customers-59 percent of those it now serves.

"Rates to the remaining Burien customers would increase by 76 percent," he predicted.

Swab said that Water District 20 might not be able to survive long in that event.

Regardless of whether Seattle annexed part or all of the unincorporated area, he added that pipelines would have to be cut and capped at the new service boundary - at a substantial cost to Water District 20.

Council members discussed the possibility of contracting with Seattle Public Utilities so pipelines would not have to be cut.

But, said Mayor Joan McGilton, that even if this were possible, there has been "a lot of angst about the way SPU manages those out-of-city residences and north Highline has pleaded with me for Burien to do something about the service from SPU.

"Their biggest complaint is that they don't get any service from SPU. The lines are old, failed and don't have pressure, so I do have concerns about Seattle coming in and taking over lines and not keeping them to the level of service that WD 20 provides," McGilton said.

Dana Dick, general manager of Val-Vue Sewer District and Steve Sandelius, general manager of Southwest Suburban Sewer District, said if Seattle annexes North Highline, sewer rates for remaining customers would be affected due to lost revenue.

Quite simply, said Dick, the more customers Seattle takes, the worse it would be for Val-Vue and the district's customers. The more customers Burien takes, the better it would be.

Sandelius noted that Seattle has control of their own water meters and will bill customers based on actual water consumption. Low users pay low water and sewer rates, while high users pay higher rates.

"Because Suburban Sewer District has flat fees, customer's rates are the same no matter how much water those customers use," said Sandelius. "So some customers are going to benefit if Seattle annexes, but on average their bill will double."