Written by Glen Morrison 107.5 KISSFM Thursday, 16 February 2012 It's now official. Greater Vernon Water customers will have a 17% increase in water rates this year and next. RDNO directors have given their approval to those rates for domestic users, as well as 18% for commercial users this year, and 5 % for agricultural users. Board chair Patrick Nicol realizes those are steep hikes. "Greater Vernon Water's increases are off set by decreases in other parts of the Greater Vernon budget." It's estimated the average homeowner will pay an extra 80 dollars a year. The extra funds are needed to cover the costs of multi million dollar capital water projects. One of those is separating the domestic and agricultural water sources which will address capacity issues at the Duteau Creek Water Treatment Plant.
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| W.C.Fields |
A Calculator where you can interactively enter your quarterly consumption totals in m3 and see your $ increase can be found at: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet /ccc?key=0AqjuHhD4a7O5dGpVUENMTGdTUWZfSm9nVE9ieUtfQmc#gid=0
1 comment:
Water Rates Discriminate Against Rural Property Owners
Rural residential properties without the services of the City of Vernon (for example, the city stops snow removal 4 houses from my home and everyone in my area needs to wait for the dept of highways to finish everywhere else before cleaning up the snow... But this is a part of life, districts are districts, so why worry?
The issue is that if one balance, say no service in a rural area, would be offset with other considerations as clearly an administrator is making a distinction between areas and residential versus rural service.
There seems, however, to be a distinct lack of benefits, and the issue of water rates is one that does seem to discriminate against rural and large lot owners in the Greater Vernon Area.
Having a larger lot that in a designated "rural" area also comes with standard "rural" things, whether that be fish ponds, gardens, fruit trees, raspberries, and such, the cost of having my own ecosystem alive is not more than the benefits of going to the farmer's market. Current charges are ratio rate based and punish at a very high rate those over a very small amount of water consumption.
A 17% rate increase hardly affects people who live in town, but is substantial for rural folk. Water is water and should be a base rate accross the board, if not it is based on a policy that is discriminating against a population. This is a question of voter identification of inequity in this system.
Water bills that routinely run $400 should not be, in my opinion, of such poor quality that so much chlorine is used as to render undrinkable, and unadvisable to shower in. Think about it, the air smells terrible when the kids run through the sprinkler, people buy bottled water or use a purification system before consuming house water. Chlorine is one of the worst things for your artery and vein linings...
In the end, I know things will only change when people think and act in unision. So until that day, RDNO, please charge me for my water, but use that money to do better work at providing a product that is safer for consumption>?
N.
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