City report calls for water, sewer rate hikes of more than 20% by 2027

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This article was published 03/01/2024 (658 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The City of Winnipeg is recommending an increase to the cost of water and sewer rates that would translate to a price hike of more than 20 per cent for some families by 2027.

In a report included in the city’s water, waste and environment committee agenda published Tuesday, the Winnipeg public service recommended council approve a four-year rate increase as a result of “major capital and operating cost increases.” According to the report, a family of four using 50 cubic metres of water per quarter could expect their annual bill to jump from $1,260 in 2023 to $1,540 in 2027, including a 3.8 per cent increase this year.

The recommendation in the report comes from assumptions about the cost of future projects, including more investment in the North End sewage treatment plant upgrades and no new funding for phosphorus and nitrogen removal at the plant.

St. Vital Coun. Brian Mayes, who chairs the committee, believes those assumptions are optimistic and unrealistic and costs could push even higher than suggested.

“It certainly calls for increased costs, and that’s never easy, but (the report) builds in some pretty optimistic assumptions,” he said Wednesday. “So I think we need to be blunter with people and come up with a number.”

Part of the difficulty in coming up with more realistic numbers, he said, is because the city is assuming it will receive $279 million from the federal and provincial governments to contribute to the total $1.035-billion cost of the sewage treatment plant upgrade.

He also argued that the city’s combined sewer overflow project is being under-funded, and won’t meet its 2045 deadline at its current pace.

“I give a version of this speech many times saying, if it takes till 2095, none of the current councillors will still be alive. It’s just an ludicrously long time frame,” he said.

“My point is saying, this seems a bit over-optimistic. And we need to call the question here, we need to sit down with the feds and the province and come up with some plan to to fund these things.”

At Supporting Employment and Economic Development Winnipeg, financial planning with low-income families has increasingly included efforts to mitigate spikes in the cost of necessary utilities that are out of the family’s control, co-director Carinna D’Abramo Rosales said.

“Things like utilities, which are an absolute necessity — we all need water — when we’re looking at that and knowing that this large increase is coming, then folks are looking at other areas, other budget lines, expenses that they have, on where they may have wiggle room,” she said.

“And unfortunately, that could be things like food, providing healthy food for their families… that’s where we’re seeing that increase in a sense of hopelessness and desperation and real concern on how they’re going to make ends meet.”

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All three levels of government should be exploring creative ways to cover these capital increases, instead of passing on blanket charges to people regardless of whether they can afford it, she said.

“One thing that would be interesting to consider is if rate increases for necessities could also be looked at using a sliding scale lens based on household income,” she said.

“Because these types of increases can’t be absorbed by everyone.”

The water and waste committee will meet to discuss the report next week.

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca

2024 to 2027 Water and Sewer Rates

Malak Abas
Reporter

Malak Abas is a city reporter at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg’s North End, she led the campus paper at the University of Manitoba before joining the Free Press in 2020. Read more about Malak.

Every piece of reporting Malak produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.