| Water rates going up for Enchant and Hays |
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| Local Content - Local News |
| Written by Greg Price |
| Thursday, 04 February 2010 17:42 |
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Water rates in the M.D. of Taber will be going up as of April 1, as council tries to deal with delivering an essential service to the community that does not have a high level of cost recovery to begin with. Council unanimously passed a motion at its Jan. 25 meeting to increase its water rates for Grassy Lake, Enchant and Hays. Enchant and Hays will see a $5-per-month raise to $45 per month for 22.7 cubic metres. A $2.50 raise to $47.50 per month for 22.76 cubic metres will be for Grassy Lake. Overage water charges will increase seven cents to 81 cents per cubic metre over 22.7 cubic metres per month. “One thing for sure is council never takes a rate increase lightly. They consider all options, including operating efficiencies. That’s something as a staff we are continuing to work on,” said Derrick Krizsan, municipal administrator for the M.D. of Taber, in an interview after council’s meeting on Jan. 25. Looking into the MD’s water revenues and expenses from January to December in 2009 shows a combined $176,508.53 deficit between Grassy Lake, Enchant and Hays. A lot of the expense in delivering water service is constant. “Our costs are fixed. In order to keep the lights on and the power on and the plants operating, the first gallon costs as much to produce as the last gallon,” said Derrick Krizsan, who added 80 per cent of costs are fixed, and 20 per cent are variable. The efficiencies Krizsan alluded to have the council hoping, with the municipality taking on the Highway 3 and Vauxhall and District regional water projects, at a cost of between $35-$40 million dollars with the help of grant funding, to develop an economy of scale to bring down overall costs. “With our financials, you’ll notice a community of 200 people has the same type of operational costs as a community of 600. So at that scale, there certainly aren’t too many efficiencies,” said Krizsan. “There are not only the increasing regulatory requirements for water-treatment plants, but also the hard economic facts that we hope there are economies to be gained by regionalizing.” There looks to be economies to be gained with more efficient water use as well, since the M.D. went to metering its residents. Average use per capita for litres per day for Enchant, Grassy Lake and Hays dropped dramatically from 2006 when metering was first introduced to 2009. Enchant saw a drop to an average of 482.4 litres per day capita from 933.5 in 2006. Grassy Lake saw a drop to 222.3 litres per day per capita, down from 399 litres in 2006. Hays’ consumption dropped to 557.3 litres/day per capita from 883 litres back in 2006. |