A seat at the table – updated

Note: This story has been updated to correct the amount the The County’s waterworks department will spend in 2015.

It is going to be a busy year, so let’s get right to it. Council is set to approve about $75 million in spending this week. About 76 per cent ($57.2 million) will be used to keep the wheels of the County turning—services, infrastructure and programs serving the 25,000 residents ( about 12,000 homes) of Prince Edward County. The remaining 24 per cent (about $17.6 million) will be spent on the upkeep, operation and debt repayment of a waterworks system that serves about 3,800 homes, apartment buildings and businesses.

I remind the reader: it is the waterworks users, or customers, who pay for this service through their water bills. Or, that is how it supposed to work. But lately waterworks revenue has failed to keep up with expenses. So this year the County will dip into a general reserve to balance the waterworks budget. This would be bad enough if it wasn’t for the gloomy reality that the average household water bill has more than doubled over the past decade.

And beginning this month, waterworks consumers will see another big jump in their bill—a 10 percent increase on the base rate and a seven per cent hike in the rate for every cubic metre that flow in and out of their homes.

Even if we use less, we pay more. It is a disappointing, yet unavoidable reality. Regardless how much water we use, or how little, the pumps must turn and the pipes still need to transport liquids to and from our homes, without spilling too much. This is costing much more than anyone expected.

Five years ago, in the spring of 2010, a committee of residents, council members and staff met more than a dozen times, taking a comprehensive look at the County’s waterworks plants, facilities and underground network of pipes. Picton’s new $30 million wastewater treatment facility was just coming on-line. But the rest of the town’s waterworks was in poor shape. Decades of low rates had left the system underfunded and decaying. There was, and remains, lingering anxiety about the condition of the underground pipes. Nearly all of the $7.9 million earmarked for underground replacement this year will be spent in Picton. Then there is the nagging worry that the water intake ought to be moved farther out into Picton bay—likely a multi-million dollar project.

Outside Picton, the only other comprehensive waterworks system is in Wellington. Relatively new, this system demands mostly maintenance and upgrades. Major works planned for Wellington are primarily to accommodate new residential growth.

Beyond Wellington, the system is a hodge podge of water services. The 270 customers in Consecon and Carrying Place are served as an extension of Quinte West’s water system, though their bill comes from the County. Similarly, 397 homes in Rossmore and Fenwood Gardens get their water as an extension of Belleville’s system. Ameliasburgh has 57 customers on a water system fed from Roblin Lake. And 19 homes at Peat’s Point receive their water from a nearby municipal well.

Picton’s water plant was built in 1928. Wellington’s in 1996. Taken together, it is not so much a system, rather it is a collection of diverse— and largely incompatible—assortment of pipes, pumps and tanks.

This year, another committee will be formed to look again at the County’s waterworks system, to understand what went wrong with the last plan and to determine how much we will have to pay to keep the water flowing.

It is time, finally, to create a permanent waterworks commission—guided by consumers, waterworks staff and council members representing the serviced areas. The Times made that recommendation five years ago—it is renewing this call with greater urgency.

Despite the diligent work of the previous committee, their plan fell badly off the tracks just two years later. Assumptions of growth, consumption rates, and provincial support seem absurd now. So do the aggressive amortization rates applied to waterworks debt.

They were reasonable assumptions at the time, but circumstances changed and the committee had no means to respond—it had already been disbanded.

It is hard to see how another ad hoc committee or study might achieve a better, more durable outcome.

More to the point, the waterworks system serves fewer than a third of the County’s households. While most folks understand that good urban infrastructure improves prospects for the entire County—it will never matter as much as it does to the users of the service. Because we pay for it.

It seems strange that 16 council members govern a waterworks system that most of them don’t use. Or pay for.

Waterworks users need a permanent seat around the table. Not just a bill every month.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca