With the regional water commission raising what it charges and the tight financial times, Bashaw town council is between a rock and a hard place when it comes to the 2019 water rate.
One thing is certain though, there will be an increase in the new year and residents may not like it.
The Highway 12/21 Regional Water Commission approved a price of $2.96 per cubic metre back on Dec. 7 and council was provided with an update on what administration is doing during council’s meeting on Dec. 20. Council won’t make a final decision on the 2019 water rate until its meeting on Jan. 17, which will be held at 6 p.m. at the Bashaw Community Centre.
Three options were presented by CAO Theresa Fuller — two with simple cost recovery in mind and one that would offset some operational expenses.
The first option would cut the monthly base charge to $22.39 from $25 while put the water rate at the commission rate. Option two would be similar with the only difference being the base charge would not change from the current price.
“The short and the sweet of it is, that the first option doesn’t have any contingency for purchasing extra water meters and it sort of sets up to run over budget. Option B basically keeps our base charge at $25 per month and gives us about $13,000 for purchasing water meters and continuing the program to change to the radio frequency meters,” Fuller stated.
Option C would see drastic changes — with the water rate rising to $3.16 per cubic metre with the base charge staying at its current rate. This would give the town the money to pay for more meters and also recover about 15 per cent of the water expenses for the town’s facilities.
All of the calculations are based upon Bashaw’s estimated water use for 2019 of 99,000 cubic metres — the town estimates about one third of that is unmetered usage. The 2019 estimate had to be provided as the municipality’s minimum usage amount so the commission could come up with its water rate.
With the most vocal opponent of the commission — Coun. Rob McDonald — away, councillors provided some opinions on both the commission and what price they might be leaning toward.
Coun. Darren Pearson noted the town just has to bite the bullet as it can’t absorb more water costs like it did this year, while Coun. Rosella Peterman feels it’s easier to leave the base rate alone and have some room to pay to replace meters.
“Going lower is just not practical,” Peterman stated. “If we can keep the price as close to the cost as possible at this point. I know it doesn’t cover the cost of the unmetered water, then maybe next year it’s not such a big jump.”
Saving water
Knowing a price hike was looming, administration began investigating water use at its various operations and noticed it couldn’t track how much was used as there were no water meters at nearly all of the sites.
Buildings such as the town hall, the arena and curling rink, the fire hall, the museum, the community centre, the public works shop and several other building owned by the town never had the meters installed.
The reason according to Fuller was, “when the town was on well water, it made practical sense” to not have them as it wasn’t a significant cost.
She noted many of the locations now have meters, which will go a long way to recovering the cost of water from users and managing what is actually being used. However, some facilities — such as the arena — will have meters installed in the spring due to the difficulty of doing the work during the winter.
While the meters will keep better track of usage, allowing the town a closer estimate of actual consumption to give the commission next time, Bashaw is looking into how it can save on operational usage including hydrant flushing and testing the distribution system.
jordie.dwyer@ponokanews.com
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