While we’re in favour in principle of water meters for Thompson – and said so editorially in this space last January – the “devil,” as the saying goes, is always in “the details.”

We suggested at the time water meters will not “be popular with voters in an election year, but we’re one of the biggest drinking water-wasting municipalities in all of Canada, if not the biggest. And the province has made it clear they’re not going to open their wallet for our much needed new sewage treatment plant – we’re talking $20 million or so at least – until we get our water utility up and running.”

Back in January 2009, we also suggested council seemed “primed” for “water wars 2009.” Perhaps we jumped the gun a bit. While we may still be right in the general assessment, it looks like the water wars are only now about to get under way as the City of Thompson enters the home stretch in creating a $4-million full cost recovery water utility with Neptune Technologies Group. Neptune, headquartered in Tallassee, Alabama, but also with subsidiaries in Mexico and Canada, is busy installing Thompson’s water meters under their $1.81-million contract with a go-live date of Jan. 1 planned. Approximately 4,000 no-lead high copper alloy water meters will be installed throughout the city – 3,000 for homes and 1,000 for businesses.

How much metered water will cost local residents and businesses is still unknown. In a November 2008 study prepared for the city by engineering consultants CH2M Hill, it was suggested that the yearly water cost to the average homeowner would likely fall somewhere between $736 and $803. Vale, which supplies the city’s water under the December 1956 founding agreement, estimated in 2007 that each Thompsonite uses on average about 605 litres of water per day. Environment Canada estimated the average Canadian uses 335 litres per day.

The city is hoping the installation of meters could lead to a drop of up to 30 per cent in water consumption, as well as improvements in water pressure due to fewer people trying to access the water line at any one time – therefore meeting more stringent wastewater discharge regulations.

While the water plant is owned by Vale and the production of the water is not paid for by local taxpayers, the distribution cost once the water moves beyond the Vale property line is paid for by the municipality at a cost about $1.5 million annually. It is believed to represent about 17 per cent of the current municipal property tax bill, although it will be up to the Public Utilities Board to make the final determination on whether or not that is actually the case. Water supply and treatment will continue to be provided by Vale Inco after metering begins. Thompson is one of a handful of municipalities in Manitoba not to have a water utility. The Public Utilities Board will have to approve, amend or reject the water rates set by the city for the new utility.

Meanwhile, the water wars over meters are showing the first signs of getting under way. Luke Robinson, a mechanical underground worker at Vale Inco, owned the issue during the byelection last Dec. 9 to replace Cory Young on council. Robinson was runner-up to Coun. Erin Stewart with 157 votes for the vacant seat to her wining total of 218 votes. Water meters may yet be an issue again in the Oct. 27 general election. In a July 7 letter to the editor, Ken Pittman wrote, “our elected mayor and council are about to ‘force’ water meters upon us, digging deeper in the pockets of the taxpayers … It’s nothing but a cash grab. In addition to the millions it will take to implement this program, it will “steal” millions more each year from the families of Thompson …Take a moment and urge them not to steal from us. Refuse to let the installers put a meter in your home, at least until the election this fall.”

The next battlefront could open up with high-density apartment dwellers. The city is only covering the cost of one meter installation per building. The city meter will only measure the total water usage by the entire building; there is no way to break it up by unit.

Landlords are able to install additional meters if they wish, but they would have to finance the meters themselves. Additionally, many buildings were designed in such a way that meters for individual units would be either impractical or impossible – the same pipes leading to multiple apartments, for example, without a shutoff valve for just one individual unit. Therefore, as individual units cannot as a practical matter have their water usage monitored, landlords will likely pass the cost of their water bills on to their tenants in one of two ways – either by billing every unit equally, or by billing every unit based on the number of inhabitants or bedrooms, under the assumption that an apartment with more inhabitants will use more water than an apartment with fewer inhabitants.

However, while the landlords will be charged for their water usage effective Jan. 1, they won’t be able to pass that cost on to their tenants right away. The province only allows rents to be raised once every year. The maximum increase was set at one per cent for this year, although the guidelines do not apply to properties managed by government agencies, employee housing, properties built since 2001, or units renting for over $1,105 per month. Landlords can raise their rental rates by whatever amount they want, even if it’s above the guideline, but tenants are able to appeal amounts set above the annual guideline and the landlord must show that the increase was necessary based on costs that have already been incurred – not costs that will be incurred in the future, such as future construction plans or costs created by a new water utility. For 100 apartments, that could amount to about $96,000 in water meter billing costs for the landlords for the first year.