NORTH BATTLEFORD - A delegation to city council aired their frustrations at Monday’s meeting about the way water and sewer billing is done in North Battleford.
Local resident Jane Nielsen, who appeared with Darryl Williams, as a delegation at Monday’s meeting, expressed concerns about the coupling of water and sewer rates and expressed her opinion that they should be treated as separate.
One concern she pointed out was that the summer watering discount program — meaning a drop in the per cubic metre rate to reflect increased usage of water — had disappeared in 2010.
She also raised concerns that the city had tied in water consumption with the sewer rate. Nielsen said she noticed on her bill was during the summer that both her water and sewer bills were up.
But nothing had changed about her own usage other than the fact she watered her lawn in the summer. Her sewer usage didn’t change at all.
Nielsen contends she was being charged not only for the increased water usage but also for increased sewer usage.
“It’s going in my lawn, I’m not increasing use of the sewer at all. So why am I paying for it?” she told council.
Nielsen believed the city was overcharging for water and sewer, and she also pointed to the Town of Battleford which she said has in place a structured discount on both its water and sewer quarterly charges.
“I am not getting what I paid for. How is that ethical?” Nielsen said.
Council didn’t have any immediate answers at the meeting Monday but there was interest expressed in seeing administration look into the issues raised of a potential disparity, as well as on the summer discount. Mayor David Gillan said “we’ll see what we can do in the future.”
As for the Town of Battleford rate structure, Gillan could not comment on that, but he said “the two communities are quite different, capital investments are different. Rates are structured differently for different reasons. We just have to keep in mind that’s it’s not always an apples-to-apples comparison.”
