Important sewer issues.

This discussion is extremely important to Specified Sewer Area 1 (SSA1) customers.

The urgent, last minute decision by the outgoing Council in 2005 of awarding a contract to construct a sewer main extension from McClounie Road to Aberdeen Road has major ramifications for those of us in SSA1. The reason is as follows:

Council reasoned (oxymoron?) that since the original sewer customers only had to pay 7% of the total costs any future sewer customers should pay the same rate for establishing their system. That would have been fine if they also waited for grants from senior governments for the project but they were in too much of a hurry. One might wonder what the urgency was (Coldstream Meadows come to mind, future reduced connection costs to some Council members as well). Nevertheless, they decided that 93% of the funding for the project should come from SSA1 customers and confiscated $665,000 from the sewer reserves and a further $265,000 from the sewer operating funds. I will discuss these issues at length later but I just want to inform sewer customers how gravely this decision will affect them now and in the future if they are not going to fight this decision.

If Council demonstrated urgent need for extending the sewer line at that time they could have convinced senior governments to participate. In fact, they would still be eligible for the Okanagan Basin Waterboard’s 18% grant, as we have been taxed by the OBW for decades for that grant. I understand even the City neglected to claim that grant by oversight (personal communications).

Council is embarking on major extensions of the sewer system. They will try to convince and/or force new customers to hook into these new extensions. However, the precedence was set that all new customers will only have to pay 7% of the costs. Who will pay the rest? You guessed it! It will be US, SA1 customers. Our sewer rates will skyrocket. Is this fair? Of course not! What can we do about it? We must fight it every way we can.

By law Council was supposed to follow certain rules and regulations (designate a specified area for the sewer extension, public hearings, agreement from potential new customers, identifying costs and designating who will pay, timelines etc.). They should have done a pre-design study to identify if there is a real urgency. They have not done that. In fact, they just commissioned a $35,000 study to try to rectify the omission. Mayor Corner implied:

“The one study will TRY (?) and determine the cost of servicing areas to the north and south of the 2006 sewer extension, including Whetzell, Bonavista and DeJong drives. ‘We want to know exactly how to do it,’ said Corner of the possible expansion of the sewer system and the cost. (MS, October 7.) ”

That should have been done before the project started!

Council argued that previous Councils had commissioned and completed a Wastewater Management Plan in 1994. What they neglected to ad is that this study was done to investigate the feasibility of constructing Coldstream’s own sewage treatment plant. Sewage would have been flowing from west to east, treated and disposed on designated lands in Coldstream. It was abandoned and Coldstream continued to send sewage to Vernon. What is the difference? Lots!

Greg Betts, Clerk/Administrator of Coldstream provided a report examining the consequences of continuing to send effluent from the District to the City, a flow from east to west. His report stated the following:

“If the district intends to maintain the current system of sending all effluent from the District to the City via the existing collection mains, prior to reaching the full development of Middleton Mountain, expenditures in the order of $2 million will be required to upgrade the existing mains. In addition, there will be costs to upgrade the transition main beyond the District’s boundary to the City of Vernon plant. A request has been sent to the city to confirm the order of magnitude of these costs; however, this information has not yet been received.”

This huge problem should have also been addressed before the sewer main extension was carried out.

Now that Council has dangerously depleted the sewer reserves and dipped deeply into our operating funds as well they are eager to replenish the treasury at our expense. The proposed budget set the new sewer rate at $568 per year, 29% more than my calculated reasonable rate should be ($440 per year).

I am presently in contact with officials in Victoria to try to get some resolution of the matter. However, it might be that a court action might be necessary. The long term consequences of Council’s action would be huge cost increases for sewer customers. This is not fair and a remedy must be sought wherever possible. It is your money!

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