Say anything

The race is on. The clock is ticking. Shire Hall can feel opposition mounting to massive waterworks spending across Prince Edward County. Meanwhile, their explanations don’t add up. The marketing spin is a thin fabric of half-truths, breadcrumbs leading nowhere, and the slipperiest of red herrings.

The argument that developers were paying for any it was always a stretch—becoming more porous every day. Meanwhile, Shire Hall’s senior leadership, with Council in tow, are pushing as hard as they can to build a new super water plant in Wellington as part of a $200 million spending spree. As fast as they can. For they know time is not on their side.

The regional water plant is the most crucial hurdle. They believe that if they can get this tender awarded—perhaps as early this fall—the other dominoes will fall. Must fall. It will be too late, then, for the ratepayers of Prince Edward County to stop it.

Shire Hall has the momentum—a water tower, an equalization tank and, soon, trunk lines in Wellington. They know that now is their best shot. They will say anything at this point to make it happen. That makes these folks unreliable. For it will be waterworks customers who will be left with whopping debt and the most expensive water bills in the country.

We are nearly there. Prince Edward County residents already pay among the highest water bills in Canada—68 per cent more than Belleville and Quinte West. More than double the water bills paid in Brighton or Napanee. It happened quickly. Households in this community went from paying about $200 a year to more than $2,000 in the span of a couple of decades. No other household costs in their lives have risen as fast or unrelentingly as their water bills—not electricity, not gas, not phone bills. Water bills in Prince Edward County are eating more of their household budget every year. And it will get worse.

Should Shire Hall succeed in awarding the regional water plant later this year or next, your bills will spiral upward. That is because existing users are on the hook for all of it—all the expense, all the debt, and all the maintenance—until such a date as new homes flood this market. The entire fantasy is built on the promise of massive new homebuilding—of unprecedented growth in this community. If you are uncertain that the County’s population is set to double in the next few decades—and you pay a water bill—brace yourself. Shire Hall is betting your families’ financial future on a big wave of never-seen-before population growth.

A lot is at stake.

After residents got over the shock of opening their water bill last month, they would have found an upbeat newsletter titled What’s on Tap? The flyer seems crafted to make the medicine taste better—to ease the looming sense of dread. But its purpose is to confuse and muddy the water.

The spin begins with the claim that the County waterworks are aging and “will need to be replaced within 10 years regardless of growth.” Except it isn’t true. Or, more precisely, there is no evidence that it is true. This column has asked many times for the engineering studies or reports that support this claim. None have ever been produced. A condition report prepared as part of the 2021 Master Servicing Plan for Wellington made recommendations for supplementing the existing system—but it does not say that it needs to be replaced.

The water source in Wellington is pristine. The existing water treatment system is modular—can be expanded or bits replaced. Same for the wastewater plant. Bottom line: there is simply no evidence that “much of Prince Edward County water and wastewater infrastructure” needs to be replaced for existing customers. If it exists, then Shire Hall must produce it.

The newsletter pushes the oft-heard Shire Hall narrative that the costs of Wellington’s waterworks upgrades are already in your bills. This claim is just wrong. Not even close.

The original $100 million cost—upon which your water bill is calculated—will surely cost more when the final bills are tallied—likely a lot more. None of the inflation costs since 2021 nor the inevitable cost overruns and additions are in your water bill. Yet.

But it gets worse: your water bill assumes one million square feet of industrial, institutional and commercial development erupting out of the ground in Wellington—stores, churches, offices and the like. Some of this commercial building extravaganza should have been evident by now. One million square feet is a lot—equivalent to six Costcos. Nearly a third of the $100 million relies on this happening. Soon. If it doesn’t— and it won’t—then existing water ratepayers are on the hook to cover this $30 million.

So, no, the current rates, even your eyewatering water bills currently, won’t cover the spending spree. Not even close. This is wilful misdirection.

But the threat is more serious still. Should Shire Hall succeed in awarding a new super plant in Wellington to serve Picton and environs, a 20-kilometre pipeline will become inevitable. Taken together, a regional water plant and pipeline will push the estimated cost to more than $200 million—with no means to recover any of this cost other than from existing residents.

Shire Hall says it is working on funding mechanisms for Picton and Bloomfield development—yet it has nothing yet. More worrying, it clings to the hope the province comes through with an $18 million cheque, which will “reduce the cost of borrowing and have a positive impact on the future rate studies.” according to the envelope stuffer. It won’t. It can’t.

Eighteen million dollars won’t cause a ripple on the ocean of spending Shire Hall is throwing around. Picton’s wastewater treatment plant was originally estimated to cost $17 million. The final cost was more than $35 million. That’s the way infrastructure projects go. Let’s assume this administration is better at it now—I’m not sure why—but let’s be generous and assume the final cost is just 50 per cent more than it now estimates. That means spending more than $300 million on the backs of existing ratepayers (about $50,000 of new debt per waterworks customer).

If you are Doug Ford, getting away with paying just $18 million on $300 million of new infrastructure in Prince Edward County is brilliant. One more in a string of lucky breaks.

Who, exactly, is Shire Hall working for?

rick@wellingtontimes.ca