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Dale Boyd

Osoyoos Times 

Osoyoos town council was not yet ready to pull the trigger on a possible  $3.5-million project to implement universal water metering to all customers within town boundaries.

Council voted at the Jan. 20 regular meeting to receive more information from town staff before voting ahead an implementation plan with a budget of $125,000 to start the process of metering all water within town boundaries.

At the water and sewer budget meetings in December, council identified universal metering as a “priority item for implementation.”

“With only 6.7 per cent of the community’s water system metered, there is a significant amount of water not being accounted for accurately,” said Jared Brounstein, director of operational services, in a staff report to council.

An estimated budget of $125,000 would be needed for the creation of a water metering implementation plan, taken from the capital reserves established for water metering (currently at $500,000) — with money coming into the fund on a yearly basis from town and district water users since the study came before council.

The possible cost of $3.5 million would likely come with the assistance of infrastructure grant funding, said town CAO Allan Chabot.

“A big part of the implementation plan is looking at grant funding opportunities. We probably wouldn’t proceed at a cost of $3.5 million if we didn’t get significant grants to offset the cost of that,” Chabot said.

Mayor Sue McKortoff noted Osoyoos may be the only community in the Okanagan that does not have all water usage metered, a sentiment echoed by Coun. CJ Rhodes.

“It’s not only the Okanagan, it’s the entire province, this is all about water conservation and we’ve been procrastinating for quite a number of years. I feel very strongly that it’s mandatory that we move forward as rapidly as possible,” Rhodes said. “Water metering is the number one solution for water conservation.”

Coun. Brian Harvey said in his conversations with constituents that metering all water usage is a “tough sell.”

“Being a tough sell — it seems like a no brainer on a whole bunch of fronts —but down at the ratepayers level it’s not necessarily. ‘It’s the cost, it’s a money grab,’ you hear words like that,” Harvey said.

Being the most significant capital infrastructure cost to the town, Chabot said, figuring out who should pay what in a fair and equitable way is key.

“We realize it’s a difficult sell. People believe the water is free. Well, nature gives us the water, it doesn’t treat it for us, nor does it distribute it through pipes to houses or collect it for disposal after its use,” Chabot said. “It’s probably our most significant capital infrastructure cost. So figuring out who should pay what, fairly and equitably, in the long-term, it’s important that we get it right.”

Inside meter placements are installed on all new residential construction in town since the early 2000s. To date, the town has installed a total of 266 water meters, which covers about 6.7 per cent of the 4,000 individual water sites.

“It’s going to happen at some point and we’ve sort of been working towards it all this time. We need to, sometime, bite the bullet,” McKortoff said.