East Gwillimbury water rates poised to rise

Yorkregion.com
May 7, 2015
By Simon Martin

Council deferred voting on its water and wastewater budget Tuesday and has asked staff for a communication strategy to deliver the unsavoury news to residents.

Here’s the message without any of the PR spin: your water rates are going up and you can’t do anything about it.

Last year, the increase was 9 per cent or $74 to the average homeowner.

This year, town staff has proposed a budget where the water and wastewater fixed rates would increase by $96 in 2015.

The increase is part of a four-year phase proposal that would see fixed rates for water and wastewater double from a combined $304 annually in 2014 to a combined $620 in 2018.

The problem, according to the report, is that a majority of the town’s costs are fixed and related to delivering the water to residents, while the revenue is variable and fluctuates with usage.

Town operation includes testing water; delivery of safe drinking water to property owners and delivery of wastewater to the region.

Town treasurer Mark Valcic said while residents have been good at conserving water usage, a majority of the town’s water revenue comes for the variable rate.

The town needs to align its rates so they better reflect what it costs the town, he added.

In the past four years, the average annual water consumption in East Gwillimbury has decreased from 260 cubic metres to 230 cubic metres.

According to the town, the current water rates aren’t providing sufficient revenue to put money into reserves to eventually replace the infrastructure.

While the town has $2.2 million in the water and wastewater reserves, the accumulated depreciation of the water infrastructure is estimated at $34 million.

The town’s contribution to reserves is $1 million while the annual amortization of the water and wastewater infrastructure is approximately $1.7 million.

East Gwillimbury is hardly alone in having a significant water infrastructure deficit. It is a challenge in all of the region’s nine municipalities.

It doesn’t help that the cost of buying water from the region has increased 60 per cent since 2010 and staff foresees 10-per-cent annual increases of the cost of water for the foreseeable future.