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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Hike in water, sewer rates tabled to fund upgrade

By: Bartley Kives

7/11/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 10

WATER and sewer rates are going up in Winnipeg again next year, as the city continues to absorb the cost of a $1.8-billion waste-water upgrade that won't be completed until 2030.

The average Winnipeg household will see its annual water and sewer bill rise by $21.22 to $816.60 in 2010, based on rate increases that will go before city council's public works committee on Tuesday.

Water and sewer rates have been rising since 2003, when the province ordered the city to upgrade its sewage-treatment facilities following a discharge of almost one million cubic metres of raw sewage into the Red River as result of an accident at the North End Water Pollution Control Centre.

The $1.8-billion waste-water upgrade, which also involves the replacement of combined sewers, is the main factor driving up water and sewer rates. Water and waste spending is financed through water and sewer bills, not through property taxes.

In 2010, water and sewer spending is expected to be $272 million, with $71 million going toward the construction of new facilities alone.

According to a water-and-waste report to city council, the precise amount of future spending is difficult to predict until the city costs out future component of the waste-water upgrade, creates a new water and sewer utility and finds out whether new Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger will agree to amend a provincial ruling that requires the city to build additional nitrogen-removal facilities into coming upgrades at its sewage-treatment plants.

Over the past two years, the city and province have butted heads over solid nitrogen removal, which most freshwater scientists believe will actually do more harm to the Lake Winnipeg ecosystem than good. The scientists have argued Winnipeg, which is responsible for about six per cent of the nutrient loading that contributes to the algae blooms and low-oxygen dead zones in Lake Winnipeg, should focus solely on removing phosphorus, which contributes to the blooms, and ammonia, which is toxic to fish.

The city believes the extra nitrogen-removal step will cost $350 million to build and $9 million to carry out every year -- and will do more harm than good. Under former premier Gary Doer, the province did not agree.

But on the floor of council last month, Mayor Sam Katz said he met with Selinger and believes the new premier will listen to the scientific community.

"We have a new premier. He's not up-to-date on this and it's my job to get him as much data as possible," Katz said afterward in an interview. "He definitely has an open mind and he wants the information."

A spokesman for Selinger, however, said the premier's conversation with the mayor was a private matter and the province's position on nitrogen-removal has not changed. "There was an exchange of views and information. When there's something to say publicly, we will say it," the spokesman said.

Regardless of the decision on nitrogen, the city is still seeking more federal and provincial money to pay for the waste-water upgrade. In their report to council, water and waste officials say the city still has not seen $206 million in upgrade money promised by the province during the 2007 throne speech.

"To date, no agreement has been signed," the report reads.

If approved by the public works committee, the water and sewer rate increases will still go before executive policy committee and council as a whole.

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 7, 2009 B1

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10 Commentscomment icon

@StopLying...
I know...Wouldn't it be to simple to eliminate the fluoride to begin with and guess what? If it wasn't put in our water in the first place then it wouldn't have to be taken out of the water at the other end before it gets dump in our lakes...and because most of the water is brown water at the other end, that means that most of the fluoride that is put in, is what has to be pull back out...Eliminating the fluoride in the first place is just to simple if you ask me...I think we have to call and pay for a few private/civic engineers, send and pay for them water and sewer people for a while and then...Have them all come back and say, it's really simple? We could save x amount of money already...Sorry but my blood is starting to boil and I will say...We just have to put an end to all that insanity at some point by making our mayor accountable or he just simply has got to go already...GGF

avatar

The first thing people need to be asking before money is spent.... why is the city putting sodium fluoride into our water supply?

Do a little research on the sodium fluoride in our city water... you'll quickly see how the city passes the buck onto the province and the province passes the buck onto the feds...and the feds only info on the fluoride in the water is a short little paragraph on the their website that says fluoride comes from aluminum smelting, chemical and fertilizer manufacturing..

Well at least the feds can say they told you about it....but nowhere do any of the 3 levels of government tell you the difference between sodium fluoride and calcium fluoride... it's deceivingly just called fluoride.

Isn't it nice how the city and the province use plausible deniability to not have to answer to the crime?

Do a little research on who and when sodium fluoride was first used in public water systems...

"The real reason behind water fluoridation is not to benefit children`s teeth. If this were the real reason there are many ways in which it could be done that are much easier, cheaper, and far more effective. The real purpose behind water fluoridation is to reduce the resistance of the masses to domination and control and loss of liberty." - Charles E. Perkins, chemist.

Notice any losses of liberty lately?


I think it's time the people in power stop lying...don't you?

@canadian-one...

Have you ever wondered under whose directive these engineers and or sewer and water officials are under...Our mayor...He directs them and also pays their salary which then brings me to my following point...It is far to convienent in our system for politicians to get away with what they do...They simply past the buck back to the engineers etc whom which they are the "Boss"...and have absolute power over...and use their findings/numbers to justify their political goals...

Have any of you out there kept your jobs for long when and if you went against your boss's wishes/directives? You, me and the rest of us would all be unemployed right? It is such a joke to see politicians get away with this stuff all the time and never have to be accountable to us the public whose very purse/pocket they continously to put their hands in...I am, and will always be pushing for some accountablity from our politicians and mainly in this case our mayor Sam Katz...He has been in my opinion out of control over there at city hall and has to become accountable or go already...It's not rocket science...Let the public see and scurutinize the engineeers' and or water and sewer officials' numbers and mainly and most importantly...How they got there etc before you start dipping in our pockets...If you have nothing to hide then why worry?...You may have an educated/informed public and then have to fire a few deadbeats instead of sleeping with them?...GGF

Great, I get to pay to help fix a system I will never take advantage of. There's no chance I will still be living in this backward province in 2030.

Whine if you want but all the work is necessary,and of course we have to pay for it . We cause, the use, and pollution of the water so why shouldn't we pay for it? And NO I don't work for the Government

I wish I had the power to cash grab ... the engineering firms are the main problem period. The higher that they can push a projects dollar value is in direct relation to how they get paid. It is easy to spend money when it is not your own. How much do Winnipegers already pay to the province loads and loads along with loads going to the city. Neither one of them can run balanced books. I would like to see an auditor general report on the province and the city. Then who ever has a budget overrun is OUT of a job. GET OUT OF MY POCKET.

@Winnipegger etc...Absolutely right...In the real world if businesses operated the way our governments run...They would all be put out to pasture a long time ago...and furthermore as I have said before...We started with a 900 million dollar figure in 2006 and then went to 1.2 Billion and now are at a 1.8 Billion dollar figure in 3yrs and using that analagy we should be at 3.6 Billion 3yrs from now because for obvious reasons the same Sewer and Water managers will now get to try again and maybe by then we will start asking the real question we should have ask today...How can this figure become transperant enough so you and I can scrutinize the compulation that arrives at this figure and or any other figure and debate the above before we are abritraly asked to start paying more without actually knowing what we are paying more for...There's so many if's to this project and only one sure thing...The increase on our water bill is justified around all today's if's at 1.8 Billion Dollars...How on earth can this be justified and or acceptable without the public having had the oppurtunity to scrutinize that figure in the first place and for the record today and not 3yrs from now?...GGF

Another"cash grab." When they need more funds to pay their OVERPAID Managers, who are NOT accountable, it seems, to anyone, they stick it to us. Oh, and this increase, along with the past 45% increases will never pay for whatever this upgrade they are doing. This should of been done 30 years ago, but keeping with the City's "take" attitude and blaming the Province for all their woes, instead of working with them to create a fair disbursement of funds from them, all they do is "stick" it to the public.

According to the Manitoba Historical Society pages at one time there were 180 different fisheries around Lake Winnipeg. What would the value be today if they were still functioning? We might save a lot of money by not properly processing sewage in one area, while destroying environment in another. It will take much longer for the lake to come back to what it was.. Long after the sewage is safely processed in 2030.

There's no agreement as to how to fix or fund this thing, but my water bill will go up....let's see, in the real world, this is how it would work. A grocery store has products, their consumers may or may not buy, so they jack up the prices because we know they will buy eventually...how long do you think the grocery store will stay in business? Stop gouging us!!!!

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