Works Superintendent Gary Williamson wants council to be able to make an informed decision when it comes to considering meters for residential water.
Council’s committee held a meeting recently to consider the pros and cons of installing residential water meters in the two towns and discussed the results on Aug. 10.
The water and sewer committee wanted discussion to take place prior to the anticipated round of funding being announced, and since 2010 is the next municipal election.
“If we do not move forward in the near future, it will be up to the next council to consider implementing a residential metering program,” the committee report stated.
At the meeting, Williamson said residential water meters have been identified in the development charges rate study and the water and sewer rate study. He said the work would involve roughly 3,000 residential services.
Further, the Ministry of the Environment is “strongly promoting” total metering of all customers.
Areas of concern included:
– the potential $1.3-million to complete the installations;
– would metering qualify for government funding?;
– once meters are initiated, they must be maintained; and,
– additional costs for staff.
Centre Wellington’s Director of Public Works was also at the meeting to give an overview of what was done in Centre Wellington five years ago.
Ken Elder’s comments included:
– metering allows municipalities to realize full cost recovery by accounting for all water pumped into the system and meets the new MOE water system licensing program;
– the likelihood of the MOE making metering mandatory;
– metering quantifies water loss and encourages leak detection programs to improve the system;
– Centre Wellington installed about 6,000 meters with less than a 1% failure rate (about 10 customers tried to bypass the meter);.
– The department now gets 10 complaints per month, which requires a staff member three days per month for maintenance;
– initially, water use dropped by about 25%, but it is creeping back up;
– a monthly maintenance fee is charged on every monthly bill; and
– the move encourages homeowners to repair leaks and is a fair way to bill for all customers.
Also speaking a the meeting were representatives from Neptune, which did the Centre Wellington meter installations.
They offered the following comments:
– public education is imperative;
– it would take up to six months to install 3,000 meters;
– bylaws must be in place to cover access for installations and further meter maintenance;
– meters are read by radio frequency and the ERT battery life is about 20 years;
– municipal staff can be trained to do monitoring; and
– it is imperative to have someone monitoring monthly water use to identify abnormalities before they become major problems.
Mayor Mike Broomhead said that rather than reinvent the wheel, council decided to bring in people in-the-know.
He said that Dale Murray provided the engineering aspects.
Williamson added, “We’re hearing rumblings that there might be another round of funding.
“We know residential metering is coming and the MOE is pushing for it. The meeting was to give council as much background as possible. If funding becomes available, council can make a decision whether or not to move ahead.
“Barring that, there’s always next year’s budget … where it would be a capital cost.”
The meeting was held to provide the information to make an informed decision, Williamson said.
