Water, sewer rate hikes under review

JOHN MOORHOUSE Thursday, February 5, 2009 Penticton Herald:

Penticton council has put proposed increases in the city‘s water and sewer rates on the back burner -- at least for now. Council this week postponed debate on whether to implement 15 per cent hikes in domestic water rates and a 10 per cent increase in sewer fixture rates. Instead, city staff will further review the matter prior to the next regular council meeting on Feb. 16. Jack Kler, the city‘s director of corporate services, said the sewer hike is linked to the $30-million upgrade to the city‘s wastewater treatment plant. The city had planned to borrow $24.6 million, but now only needs to borrow $14.6 million following the recent awarding of a $10-million federal grant. “We need to increase our rates to service the debt, but we will only increase our rates up to the debt that we incur, not for the total project cost,” he said. The water rate increases are required to finance more than $10 million in upgrades to the city‘s treatment plant on Penticton Creek. Kler noted the first 15 per cent rate hike went into effect in 2008, with an identical increase planned for this year and a further 10 per cent in 2010. The increases would pertain to both the basic domestic water rate and metered consumption rate. No rate increase is proposed for agricultural irrigation water rates. Coun. Mike Pearce said although the rate hikes may be justified he‘d like to have more time to review the matter, including whether the projects themselves could be postponed. “This may be something that we ultimately have to go ahead with, but I need to look at this way more seriously about whether we slow these projects down,” he said. Pearce said the rate increases would have a significant impact on city residents.
The proposed new rates would add another $55 a year onto the average residential water bill. Plans called for the basic rate increase to come into effect with the March billing, while higher consumption rates would be included in the next semi-annual billing in June.