Recently the City of Nelson commissioned a study of our water system that largely promotes adding watering metering to Nelson’s system. This is a very expensive proposition, the cost would be between $2 million and $3 million to install the meters. In addition they would saddle Nelson residents with the ongoing maintenance of thousands of meters.
So why spend the money? The study discusses the ideas of conserving water and making the system more equitable between users.
First do we need to conserve water beyond what we’re doing now? Nelson has an abundant year around supply of water. We tap three small creeks that feed into several smallish reservoirs. We have a huge natural reservoir which is the snowpack in the mountains above the city. We’re not about to run out of water.
According to the study, Nelson residents already use far less water per household than the national average, about 30 per cent less. Also our system leaks into the ground about a quarter of the water we divert. By continuing the program of repair and upgrades to stop the leaks we will automatically increase our supply.
As far as equity between users, several things need to be kept in mind. First there is no cost difference to supply one household using 750 gallons of water per day and a neighbouring household using a 1,000 gallons. We’re also not burdened with the cost of pumping water from wells or building massive reservoirs.
Our system has been built and paid for over many decades by the residents. It would be very inequitable to now start charging residents different rates when there is no cost difference to supply the water.
So why spend millions of dollars to install water meters when there are no benefits for the residents? I believe under the guise of water conservation, our senior governments would love to see cities like the City of Nelson use water meters to substantially increase the price of water in order to develop another source of revenue so they can scale back their financial contributions to cities. This would be a betrayal of the residents in order to supply the appetite of our governments for more of our money.
We built the water system for our benefit, not our governments. Water should be priced at the cost of supply and our governments can look at controlling their expenses and spending.
Thankfully the City of Nelson has not decided to go ahead with water metering yet and hopefully never do.
Stu McDonald
Nelson