By Sebastian Kanally, Times Chronicle

How much should it cost to increase the amount of irrigation water you take from the Ditch canal? 

This question was raised at a recent council meeting in relation to an application for 876 Road 8, Oliver, requesting a 20 acre increase to the 15 they are currently irrigating resulting in 35 total acres. 

At their January 27 meeting, Water Councillor Rick Machial did not want council to rush to approve this application without town staff looking into previous discussions around fees associated with connecting and increasing demand from the canal. 

Machial, referred to an application to increase water in the recent past and noted that “I recall there being a discussion of what the buy-in would be. Somebody shouldn’t be able to just connect to our system.”

“Considering the value of the land they are bringing on board there is a real value there. So, I suggest staff look into that . . . instead of just granting it, we actually have a charge sort of like a connection fee. I would like to see us do that before we approve this.”

Councillor Aimee Grice clarified that the application was for an increase to an already established connection and not establishing a new connection. 

Machial then said that the application he remembered was to increase capacity and was denied by council because of capacity concerns. 

Councillor Petra Veintimilla, who vaguely remembered the application in question said, “if it’s not time sensitive it would be interesting to know why we said no, and now however many years later we are not concerned about capacity.” 

Council requested that town staff get the data on increasing demand fees, and also information on applications in the recent past that have been denied by council and why. 

At their February 24 meeting, Tom Szalay, Interim Director of Development Services explained that they found one application that the town could not supply with high pressure irrigation water.

“With the canal being down from damages around Gallagher Lake, we were referring people to hold off until the repairs were done to add arable acreage to the system because we were down about 12 -15 per cent capacity. So, we were referring people to wait until we could get the capacity back up and for them to reapply at that time if they were within our system boundaries.” 

This was in reference to the Gallagher Lake rockslide which they just commissioned in 2021 the Gallagher Lake bypass pump and siphon. 

As for the cost of the added demand to the system. Staff referred to the Water Fees and Charges bylaw, which sets the price at $2,403.96/acre.

The property owner would have to pay this amount to increase the arable acreage to 25 acres which results in a total connection fee of $48,079.20.

The fee increase for water service is $182.75/acre/year, which equals $6,396.25 for 25 acres for 2025. 

TRUE Engineering did an assessment on the application and supports the increase as it presents no discernible impact on the performance of the canal. 

Council carried the increase in demand for the property.