January 25, 2012
Water meters on hold
by Denise Walker
Opponents of water meters can breathe a sigh of relief, at least for a
while.
Last June, the town of Laurentian Hills was awarded a provincial grant
of $400,000 from the Ontario Small Water Assistance Program (OSWAP).
Of that, $180,000 was to go towards the costs of installing water
meters for all users of the municipal water system in Chalk River.
At the time, Mayor Dick Rabishaw promised that the town would consult
its residents before any decision was made and said, “If we do decide
to go that route, this means the province will pay part of the cost.”
Last week, however, council passed a formal resolution to request the
province to allow them to divert the $180,000 to a different part of
the water system.
The town wants to use the money to install backup power at the water
treatment plan, the intake plant, and the water tower.
The resolution points out that both the Ministry of the Environment and
the Renfrew County District Heath Unit have strongly recommended the
municipality install backup power.
In a later interview, Deputy Mayor Anne Giardini, chair of the public
works committee, said that the backup generators were a higher priority
than water meters at this time.
“The Ministry of the Environment has told us several times now that we
should have backup power and now the health unit is also strongly
advising this,” she said.
As for water meters, Giardini said the town had looked at other
municipalities with water meters.
“It looks as if there are still some glitches to be worked out.”
Giardini said another factor was that the province had not yet made
meters mandatory, saying “the province may do that in the future, but
right now we have can choose not to have them.”
The town will spend some of the grant, along with $200,000 from the
water and sewer reserves, to find the best method of diverting backwash
water from the sewage treatment plant.
Right now, the clean backwash water goes from the water plant into the
sewer, taking up space in the sewage system.
The rest of the money will be used to put the diversion in place, and
increase capacity in the sewage treatment plan.
Once all the work is done, the town will have up-to-date information on
what the capacity of the sewage treatment plant actually is.
Improving that capacity is seen by the town as crucial to further
expansion in Chalk River.
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