No Free Water

Written by Peter McIntyre  107.5 KISSFM  Thursday, 07 March 2013 16:15  
Greater Vernon residents will see modest increases to water charges this year, although everyone will now have to pay consumption fees, no matter how little water you use. The Greater Vernon Advisory Committee which deals with parks,  recreation, arts and water issues has approved three percent increases to base and consumption fees. The regional district's Engineering G-M, Dale McTaggert, says customers that use between 0 and 20 cubic metres, will pay user fees for the first time. "We're trying to set it up so the base fee is the fee you pay for the infrastructure to get you the water, and then you pay for consumption, so there's no free water." The charge for low water users (0-10 cm and 10-20) will be between 50 and 90 cents per cubic metre, which is a 1,000 litres. About 25% of domestic customers use under 20 cubic metres a quarter. McTaggert says the original increase (17%) would have raised four million dollars for capital projects. "We didn't do the raise this year so now we're two million short (for capital projects), so we're going to take the two million out of reserves to balance the budget this year." RDNO has about 12 million dollars in its water fee reserve. McTaggert says directors felt it was important to finish an update to the master water plan before implementing the higher rates. "The master water plan will lay out the direction we're going from here, so let's not make the decision to add the 17% this year, let's wait until after the master water plan is adopted." Coldstream director Gyula Kiss led the motion to cut the rate increases by using reserve funds. Directors Catherine Lord, Mike Macnabb and agricultural rep Ted Osborn were opposed.