Thanks for your questions. There are many details still to be decided – including who will complete the work and whether accommodations will be made for residents with special needs. The draft Water Conservation and Servicing Master Plan will be presented to Council later this summer. If Council direction is to proceed with water meters a public procurement process for water meter installations would occur. As part of this contract the successful proponent would be responsible for any remedial repair work occurred during installations.

As part of the Water Conservation and Servicing master plan various funding models are being explored should City Council provide direction to implement water meters. 

A common unknown amongst residents is that their water bill includes a portion for water treatment and wastewater (sewer) treatment to cover the costs of providing both of these services.

Sorry for the delayed response. Safe drinking water and effective wastewater treatment are cornerstones of a sustainable, healthy community and environment. The City is responsible for the treatment, pumping and distribution of potable water as well as collection and treatment of wastewater. The annual water and wastewater budget strives to provide funds to support the City’s water and wastewater services by continuing to move towards financial sustainability (ie full cost recovery) in accordance with Provincial legislation. The current flat rate fixture based billing model doesn’t promote water conservation and means the more fixtures within a residence the more they pay regardless of the amount of water consumed. The water conservation and servicing master plan is exploring water meters as a potential more equitable billing model whereas each residence and business would be charged based on the amount of water consumed. A 2020 rate study indicated further inequity as the residential sector is subsidizing the non-residential Industrial, Commercial and Institutional (IC&I) sector by 16%. It is therefore deemed necessary to consider a new rate structure which would reflect equity between the residential and non-residential sectors.

We believe you are talking about some of the information from the Recycle Coach app?  Rinsing plastics that have some food in them helps keep the plastics stay less smelly while they are in the blue box waiting to get picked up.  And it helps the people at the sorting tacitly as it is less smelly there as well.  In addition, Cornwall's plastics are clean so that means we get more money for the recycled plastics.  So this is an example of a balancing act for some of the things we do.   Some rinsing with water is good.  So we recommend only rinsing those plastics with food and we recommend rising with water that was used to clean dishes.  This balancing act happens with other things .  For example, full loads of laundry help water conservation.  Also, a timer for lawn watering.  Some watering helps the lawn overwatering does not.

Hello

We are not sure where the value $714,000 came from.  Although, we  create reserves for 2 reasons in general.  One being the rainy day fund.  So that if we get an emergency break we can do the repair without going to the bank for a loan.  The second is that when we are planning to replace big pieces of equipment like you would plan to get a new car (for us an example would be a big pump) we can make the purchase without getting a loan or the loan would be much smaller.

I hope that gives you some useful information if you need anything more.  Please ask another question.

Hello

If you go to https://www.cornwall.ca/en/live-here/water-and-wastewater-bill-calculator.aspx you can take a look and see an estimate of what your bill might look like if the Water Conservation and Serving Master plan is approved.  You can compare the estimate for people use use less against those who would use more.

Thanks for your interest.

Good suggestions.  What we are trying to include with the water meters (which by the way might be more important) is sensors and software to be able to make bill reading and leak detection and energy management (better schedule when pumps come on).  So to get all the benefits we need to include everything which means wireless water meters everywhere, some sensors on fire hydrants and some computer programming.  The project gets difficult to get for example the leak detection program to be fast if only some parts were installed either wireless meters, sensors or software.

The fixed rate is based on the idea of paying for the things made out of concrete and steel like the water purification plant building and they stay in place (fixed) and have 1 cost - the cost of construction.  Then to make drinking water there are costs that change depending on how much is made for things like electricity and chemicals.  Also, the equipment needs to be maintained and is maintained more often if it is used and used a lot.  We separate it that way when the budget is presented to Council, although it's not done that way when a rate payer gets their bill.. This method is one way to create equity so the person only pays for the portion they use.  Sorry we didn't mention the fixed portion directly.  The fixed portion will stay the same with only adjustments for cost of living.  The cost of living for the fixed charge is not predicted to change very much if at all.

Thank you.  In first report we brought to Council we shared with them what you described.  At that time they asked us to develop this Water Conservation And Servicing Master Plan so that they could more fully understand the concerns and opportunities so that they could give direction for improvements.  We are hoping to bring the report to Council shortly after we complete this engagement with the public.

Due to the inequity that exists between residential and business it is proposed in the rate study that residential rate would go down.  We will have a water calculator up and running next week and you can check out what your new rate might be.  It will likely get close to your sister's bill.