Tuesday, November 09, 2010
Okanagan Landing Sewer Issue Back Before Council - Costs for City and residents questioned
It's a smelly issue. One thousand Okanagan Landing residents remain on septic systems and the matter has once again gone before Vernon city council. Some councillors are concerned about hook up fees but for entirely different reasons. Bob Spiers fears the possible cost to the City. ``If everyone went the Muncipal Fee way, we could have an 18-million dollar receivable out there and that scares the hell out of me,'' Spiers warned Monday, adding that he was also worried about the impact of subsidies to residents who go for hook up. Patrick Nicol had another worry. He said he doesn't want long-time, elderly residents to be forced to hook up when a sewer line goes past their front doors. He said some people are on fixed incomes and can't afford it.
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3 comments:
There is more to this than just an economic argument!
What about the City's duty in terms of environmental protection?
What about enhancing Okanagan Lake water quality?
There is no doubt that septic systems continue to be a source of pollution for Okanagan Lake.
From the Okanagan Sustainable Water Strategy:
"non-point anthropogenic inputs (septic tanks, agriculture, and forestry) represent about 40 percent of the phosphorus inputs"
Not only that, in the Landing, the effectiveness of septic systems on those properties located directly above Okanagan Lake is further impacted by the City's spray irrigation program on the hills above, from April to October.
Let's hope all the benefits of community sewer, and the associated costs to Landing residents, City taxpayers and the City, and the environmental impacts of the City's own programs, are fully explored before a final decision is made.
Why not seek funding to complete this important environmental protection project?
The District of West Kelowna was able to successfully sewer more than 1100 homes formerly on septic thanks to grants from the Province and Feds. Apparently, Vernon applied for that same funding a couple of years ago, but was denied. Interestingly, according to the City's application, it would cost 5X as much to hook up to sewer in Vernon as in DWK. Go figure!
Perhaps if our Council took up the cause of environmental / Okanagan Lake water quality protection and asked staff to bring sewer hookup costs into line with other comparable jurisdictions, we could attract similar funding for sewer connections in the Landing.
Utilizing some of the gas tax rebate could be of some help.
Okay, so then the taxpayers of the City will likely need to pay more towards this service. Cuz if you don't charge these "fixed-income" seniors living on lakefront property (sheesh) full price, the money has to come from somewhere. So some guy in a house in Harwood is going to subsidize the sewer cost for some rich old person on the lake??? That's fair.
Here's the real lesson in your willy-nilly annexation policies Vernon. The more you take in, the more Joe Harwood is gonna have to pay to provide basic services to the newbies.
If I'm Joe Harwood, I'm takin a real hard look at the ballot next November. See who's gonna have the cojones to cut staff and straighten out this annexation madness. Maybe bring some sanity to this whole Parks issue at the same time. Anybody????
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