EPCOR LANDS DRAINAGE DEAL
Critics lament loss of city control
City council voted Wednesday to transfer all drainage assets to Epcor, saying it will save Edmonton millions and get flood projects built faster.
The vote was 7-6, with naysayers worried putting critical city services outside council’s direct control is a bad idea.
The $1.1-billion transfer is scheduled to take effect Sept. 1, after city and Epcor officials write a legally binding contract based on the letter of agreement voted on Wednesday.
Epcor is wholly owned by the City of Edmonton. It agrees to limit rate increases to three per cent a year for five years. After that, rates will be set by city council through its utility committee.
“This has always been an issue of direct control for me,” said Coun. Dave Loken, who voted against the transfer after his attempt to push the vote back to after the October municipal election failed.
Loken said Edmonton’s longterm plan for drainage and flood mitigation was solid and saw no reason to change it.
Mayor Don Iveson said he has no concerns. It will allow Epcor to grow and provide valuable services to many other municipalities under contact, returning a profit to Edmonton taxpayers.
“There’s hundreds of billions of dollars of infrastructure aging across this continent in communities that don’t necessarily have the capacity to … overhaul that infrastructure,” Iveson said, adding Regina’s mayor is now one of Epcor’s biggest fans because of the solid work it did there.
He said citizens are unlikely to see a difference. Their rates will stay the same under the new deal and Epcor drainage projects will continue to be regulated by the city, just in a different way.
Council also committed Wednesday to making the process of regulating Epcor more accessible to the public.
Coun. Michael Walters said the biggest surprise for him was how few people realize Epcor is publicly owned and understand how it is regulated. The rates are set every five years in a performancebased rate system. Epcor agrees to meet certain environmental and service standards in exchange for a set amount of money.
But that’s based on a massive amount of technical information, Walters said.
“It’s so comprehensive that it’s not accessible.”
City officials will report back on how to make that process more accessible when they propose changes to the drainage and utility bylaw in June.
Epcor turns a profit. Part of that is reinvested in the company and now $166 million annually will go to Edmonton as its sole shareholder.
About 85 per cent of its revenue comes from operations in the City of Edmonton, president Stuart Lee said. Fifteen per cent comes from operations in places such as Arizona, Regina, Okotoks and Canmore. With the expertise from Edmonton’s drainage utility, he hopes to double the size of its external contracts in the next eight years, increasing the dividend paid to the city.