Yesterday was the first chance I had to look at the brochure that was distributed at the WUC open house last week. The brochure is now posted on the WUC website under the heading Public Information - August 1/07 Water Rates.
It's certainly packed with plenty of information, most of it confusing, disingenuous and bordering on deception. Here's a summary of the relevant facts that can be found in the document:
1. A typical family home uses 294 m3 of water each year.It took 22 pages to impart all that information. Now that you have it - can you tell me what your water bill is going to be next month or next year?
2. The average residential bill for all of 2007 will be $298.05
3. The cost of Windsor Water is $0.266
4. The total annual bill impact on water and waste water is 25%
5. Old Rates = $635.10 New Rates=$796.23 Difference =$161.13 or 25%
6. Monthly Rate increase based on 25 m3: $15.81 for water $18.81 for waste water Total =$34.62
7. The projected capital investment required to maintain the integrity of our system is estimated at $750 million over the next 30 years. To meet this need the annual watermain replacement levy will go from approximately $25.20 in 2006 to $67.55 in 2007.
8. The average residential bill will see an increase from $219 in 2006 to $298.05 in 2007
9. Watermain Replacement Levy - 45% charge of fixed charges and water consumption charge
10. Summer Levy - The summer levy is an additional charge of 0.249 cents per cubic metre applied to all consumption between May 1st and October 31 in excess of average consumption between November 1st and April 30th
One thing to remember when looking at this brochure, the City wants to spend $250,000 of your tax dollars next year to implement this type of "communication" citywide.
The worst thing in the whole document is a nice graphic touting how low the water rates are in comparison to municipalities in Essex County and the rest of Ontario.
The graphic seems to show that Windsor isn't that bad off compared to other municipalities, but what are we actually comparing? There is no legend or scale in the graphic.I suspect we are comparing "Water Rates", which in Windsor is comprised of the usage charge of $0.266 per cm and the Fixed Charge of $16.84, but even that I'm not sure. I think they might be further blending the 2007 rates, as the new increase didn't kick in until this past August 1st. Most other municipalities' rate increases were in effect sometime between January and May.
I've attempted to demonstrate in other posts that while we may have the lowest water usage rate ($0.266 ) in Ontario, if not all of Canada, that's not necessarily a good thing. Combined with the much higher fixed charges, the low usage rate is a disincentive to conservation. I will be continuing on that theme later on this week with further posts on moving to a User Pay system that will allow people to actually save money while conserving water.
That aside, let's take a look at what the "average" family in Windsor (25 cm per month) would be paying for water and sewer services in Windsor versus some of the cities shown in the comparison.
Windsor - $71.64 per month, $859.73 per year (doesn't include summer levy) (Note: a 5 cm per month reduction in Windsor would save $4.05 per month, $48.60 per year)
Hamilton - $40.49 per month, $485.88 per year
Sarnia - $50.52 per month, $606.24 per year
Kitchener - $59.37 per month, $712.44 per year (Note: a 5 cm per month reduction in Kitchener would save $11.87 per month, $142.44 per year)
Peterborough - $50.67 per month, $608.04 per year. (Note: Peterborough has a flat rate system. I calculated this amount based on a 6 room house, with the maximum billable lot square footage of 1500 sq m, no swimming pool. Metered service is available by request, but it was difficult to figure out the price for this as they didn't publish their sewer rate charge, simply a statement that the sewer charge was a proportion of the water usage. A rough guess using 150% as a sewer charge would equal $61.03 per month or $732.36 per year).
Barrie - $59.37 per month, $712.44 per year (Note: a 5 cm per month reduction in Barrie would save $9.60 per month, $115.20 per year)
Waterloo - $53.17 per month, $638.04 per year
Aren't you glad that Windsor has such favourable water rates when compared to these other municipalities?
The reason for the notes after Windsor, Kitchener and Barrie is to demonstrate the difference between Fixed Charges with low Usage rates (Windsor), User Pay with low Fixed Charges (Barrie) and complete User Pay (Kitchener).
For all the "you're comparing apples and oranges" people, the WUC picked these cities to compare, not me. I'm simply demonstrating how ridiculous and misleading their comparison is.
Divert, deflect and distract. It only works if we let them get away with it.
