Timmins council is exploring the cost of water meters.
Tuesday, council asked staff to see how much it would cost for a consultant to do a cost-benefit analysis for water meters.
Currently, most residents are on a fixed bill that is determined by the number of bedrooms in a house. This year's water and sewer rate hike was approved earlier this year and will see the average rate (based on a five-room house) increase $50 — $21 for water and $29 for sewer.
At that meeting, KPMG's Oscar Poloni laid out the water and sewer rate challenges the city is facing.
The report noted that relying on flat-rate structure instead of meters "impacts operational effectiveness and public policy objectives."
Coun. Cory Robin called for the water meter analysis at this week's council meeting.
Based on the KPMG report, he said “it was fairly obvious that it’s underfunded and there’s a deficit there of about $20 million.”
He noted there is always reluctance to raise water bills. With a flat rate, he said there is no reward for conservation, no consideration of family size, and no relief for people on a fixed income.
Director of public works and engineering Pat Seguin said a request for proposal (RFP) can be issued for a water meter study. Those bids would be brought to council for approval.
“I have contacted the engineers from Sudbury, Sault Ste. Marie, North Bay, and have got some responses on the implementation of their water meters,” said Seguin.
While he didn't want to guess what the cost of the study could be, he said the cost per household to implement a water meter is about $500 to $600.
"There’s a lot of technology that’s come out on meters, there’s intelligent technology that allows you to control the meter from a desktop that gives you instantaneous readings, allows for uploading and billing, detects leakage. It’ll measure usage during the night, 24 hours a day, and if it sees that it can flag the city to advise users that they’re system is leaking,” he said.
Because of the technology available, Seguin said it would be well worth it to use a consultant.
Robin said an RFP is exactly what is needed.
"Honestly what I want to accomplish is I want to keep tackling this pervasive issue of the water costs being what they are, constantly being needed to increase and there’s always a reluctance to that by not wanting to put increases on our seniors. I know that a gentleman spoke to me has an almost $1,700 water bill, he lives by himself and I think well, a meter would solve a lot of your problems like that. And the suggestion to him is to say, ‘Well if you don’t like the size of your water bill, get a smaller house’ and I think that’s not a direction I want people who’ve lived here their whole lives to hear,” said Robin.
At the very least, Mayor George Pirie said the city would end up with better data, and "with better data we make better decisions"
