City to reimburse big water bills
Council approves plan it says will not be paid for through a hike on ratepayers
City council has approved a plan to assist Calgarians who unintentionally rack up big water bills, months after the issue was first raised in the media.
Enmax customers who receive abnormal bills for unintentional water use — amounting to three times their typical seasonal usage — will be eligible for reimbursement under the new adjustment process which has been in place since October.
City administration began looking into the matter last fall after reports emerged of numerous Enmax customers complaining about skyrocketing monthly water and wastewater bills. The investigation pointed to undetected leaks, rather than problems with water meters, as the cause of the out-ofwhack bills.
Reimbursements for the overages are projected to amount to $1.5 million annually, though it is not clear whether those costs will be absorbed by ratepayers or borne by the water utility.
Mayor Naheed Nenshi said Monday that monthly water bills will not be increasing by 30 to 40 cents to cover the cost of reimbursements, as had been previously suggested by city administration.
“The cost of this, just like the cost of shoplifting and spoilage in a grocery store, will just be absorbed in the whole system,” Nenshi said.
“It’s frankly not that much in a very big utility. And I think that makes sense, rather than go after people for these overages.
“Bills will likely go up regardless because the cost of water servicing is going up a little bit. We’ve frozen them in the last couple years. They will likely go up anyway, but it won’t be because of this.”
Previously, a manager with the city’s water resources unit, Shannon Abbot, had told reporters on Feb. 14 that the reimbursement program would “equate to about 30 to 40 cents a month on a customer’s bill in terms of recovering it through rates going forward,” beginning in 2019.
But at council Monday, the head of water resources for Calgary, Rob Spackman, appeared to walk back those comments. Spackman told council the water utility had cited the $1.5-million cost to be “transparent” about the amount of rebates being offered.
“That’s not to say that that automatically means that there’s a rate increase as a result; there’s a lot of things that go into setting rates,” Spackman said.
Responding to critical media reports and councillor comments, the city emphasized Monday that the skyrocketing bills had nothing to do with meter problems and that an independent assessment of the technology determined not a single bill was caused by faulty metering.
While the vast majority of big water bills are due to undetected leaks, around 20 customers each month receive bills where the cause can’t be determined, according to city data.
Calgary council also endorsed administration’s plan to further explore a customer assistance program for low-income Calgarians who struggle to pay their water bills.