Water rates are scheduled to see an increase in the upcoming year after council voted to resume the previous rate agreement. (Elliott Knopp/meadowlakeNOW Staff)

By Elliott Knopp

Water Rate Increases

Water rates set to resume annual increase schedule

Aug 26, 2021 | 3:28 PM

After delaying changes to the City of Meadow Lake’s water and sewer rates for one year, city council has agreed to resume the rate adjustment schedule previously agreed upon in 2019.

Prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, council adopted a schedule that would see water consumption rates gradually increase over a five-year period. The decision to implement this plan was based on the city’s desire to achieve a cost recovery system. This would help the city move away from subsidizing water bills and put the responsibility of paying for personal water usage on the residents.

As a result, residents will be more incentivized to monitor their water consumption and cut back on excessive usage. The City will also have more funding available that can be directed toward other items of concern.

The target was originally set in 2015, but was continually adjusted after council was seemingly forced to invest more money into the maintenance and replacement of underground utility infrastructure following a water main break in 2014 that drained the water tower.

This plan was temporarily put on hold when council opted to defer rate increases for a year while the community worked to resolve concerns related to the COVID-19 public health crisis.

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“Last year, we decided as a council to keep it as status quo because of the implications COVID-19 was bringing to our community, and we did not want to cause any extra strain,” Mayor Merlin Seymour said.

Now that many places are operating at a higher level than at the beginning of the pandemic, members of council have expressed the need for resuming the scheduled increases to meet the city’s target within a reasonable timeframe.

In the latest city council meeting, Coun. Conrad Read stated the importance of moving away from subsidized water so the current water can become revenue neutral.

“We shouldn’t be subsidizing water usage through the use of home taxes or commercial taxes,” Read said. “It should be a user pay system. We did defer [the increases] a couple times due to COVID and the assessment year, and I think that was fair.”

The quarterly water bill for an average household will see a 9.1 per cent increase in 2022, which would work out to nearly $27. Those who use less water than the average home will see a smaller rate increase, while places of high consumption will see a slightly higher rate.

City documents project the rate increases to cease by 2026. At that point, the city should be within reach of their target of achieving a cost recovery system.

Rate increases will be posted online and mailed out with the next quarterly utility billing in October.

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elliott.knopp@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @ElliottKnopp