Pittsburgh's water provider is swamped with debt and may reach for ratepayers' checkbooks for the third time in two years.

On Nov. 18, a consultant recommended that the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority raise rates 8 percent next year.

A vote on rates could come Dec. 16. The authority raised prices 19 percent in February 2004 and 17 percent in January.

Rising debt drives the hikes. Payments on the authority's $622 million debt devour half of its budget.

That debt stems in part from the demands of federal overseers and a cash-hungry city government. It may be worsened by contractors' overruns and expensive consulting contracts.

"We want to put ourselves in a position that we're not in a financial predicament going forward," said authority Executive Director Greg Tutsock. "We cannot afford to go out and borrow as we have in the past."

In 1984, the city turned its water department into an authority with a mayor-appointed board. The authority took on the challenge of maintaining a treatment plant, 1,200 miles of aging water mains, 8,000 fire hydrants, nine pumping stations, five reservoirs and 11 storage tanks.

In 1995, Mayor Tom Murphy convinced the authority to buy city-owned water and sewer lines for $96 million. The city spent that cash years ago, and now charges the authority $5.3 million a year in lieu of taxes.

The authority has also played multi-million-dollar roles in the mayor's development deals. "We have a vested interest in seeing the city stay viable," explained Mr. Tutsock, who has led the authority for five years.

But just as debt threatens the city's solvency, it weighs heavy on the authority.

The authority's debt payments were $35.4 million in 2004 -- 48 percent of its $73.8 million in revenue. Financial statements released this year estimate that debt payments will approach $40 million this year, and remain near that level through 2029.

"You're spending about half of your revenues on debt service. That's not healthy," consultant Ed Donahue told the authority's board Nov. 18. He is president of Municipal and Financial Services Group, of Maryland, hired by the authority to review rates.

He said debt payments shouldn't exceed one-third of the budget and compared the authority's practices to "taking out a mortgage to buy groceries." Instead of borrowing more, he said the authority should raise rates. Including the 8 percent hike next year, the consultants recommend increases totaling 35 percent through 2010.

Authority board Chairman Joseph Preston, a state representative from East Liberty, said the authority will consider rates as it plots its 2006 budget. "Utilities are going up. Chemicals are going up," he noted.

Mr. Murphy pointed to maintenance needs highlighted by the August water main break that flooded Gateway Center, and to a federal Environmental Protection Agency order to stop flows of sewage into the rivers. "Somebody needs to pay for it," he said.

Mayor-elect Bob O'Connor had no comment on the possibility of a rate hike, his spokesman said.

Big water users aren't happy.

"This is another attempt by the city to exact extra payments from those in this community who contribute the most to economic progress and sustainability," said University of Pittsburgh Executive Vice Chancellor Jerome Cochran, in a statement read by Vice Chancellor for Public Affairs Robert Hill.

Pitt is the authority's fifth-largest customer. It is among educational and medical institutions that have, since 1999, paid double the rate of large industrial users.

For homeowners, an 8 percent hike would add $1 to $9 to monthly bills, depending on which rate structure the authority adopted and how much water the household used. Some 30,000 households in the city's southern neighborhoods whose water comes from Pennsylvania American Water Co. would also be affected, because their rates are pegged to the authority's.

A water rate increase would be compounded by a 10 percent hike in the Allegheny County Sanitary Authority's bill that takes effect in January, and should add another $1 to $2 a month. Both agencies are trying to comply with an 2002 EPA order to stop waste from entering the rivers when rain overloads sewers. The authority estimates it will spend $300 million, mostly after 2012, to comply with the order. The effort will require lots of consultants and contractors -- a type of expense the authority has trouble controlling.

When circumstances cause a job to cost more or less than the contractor bid, the contractor asks for a change order. It's not uncommon for any agency to have several change orders on a big contract.

Some of the authority's contracts have had more than a dozen change orders. Bridgeville-based Independent Enterprises has received 14 change orders on an ongoing contract to handle water emergencies, including two for the Gateway Center main break. The cost of a 2002 contract with Oakdale Construction Co. to upgrade chemical treatment facilities has changed 21 times. Since June, the authority's board has approved change orders with a net cost of $1.13 million.

"Until you dig down, sometimes you don't know what's there," said Mr. Preston.

Mr. Tutsock said the authority is starting to issue more specific contracts, so it gets more accurate bids and fewer change orders.

In September, the board hired two consulting firms to do very similar work -- twice.

It approved twin no-bid professional service contracts of $150,000 each with Malcolm Pirnie Inc. of White Plains, N.Y., and HDR Engineering of Omaha, Neb. Both will study improvements to the authority's storage area for finished water.

The board also approved contracts for "miscellaneous consultancy services" with L. Robert Kimball Associates of Ebensburg and San Francisco-based URS Corp. Both are two-year contracts with no limit on total charges.

Under those contracts, mid-level engineers cost the authority $89 to $96 an hour including benefits, overhead and 10 percent profit. The contracts are needed because the authority's 16 in-house engineers "cannot do all of the design we need to do," said Mr. Tutsock.

Mr. Preston said different firms have different areas of expertise. He said he sometimes hires two firms for one job "intentionally to create competition among engineers" and so they can review each others' work.