Investing in water mains avoids costly urgent repairs: city official
Another slide showed Montreal has steadily increased the number of kilometres of water mains replaced annually.
In 2006, only 16 kilometres were upgraded. By 2016, the number had reached 389 kilometres.
Those upgrades paid off because the number of leaks has steadily dropped, as has the amount of water that Montreal must treat, Morissette noted.
“The situation is improving because every year we focus on (replacing) the worst ones,” she said, noting there were 29 breaks per 100 kilometres in 2012.
But she said it could take 10 years or more to erase Montreal’s water infrastructure “maintenance deficit.”
“There’s an enormous amount of work left to do,” Sylvain Ouellet, executive committee member responsible for water, told the committee.
“I have no problems defending the fact that we have to invest massively in water infrastructure.”
He said spending more on water mains will reduce the need for emergency repairs, which can cost 10 times more than planned repairs and can be far more disruptive.
“With planned work, we have time to warn people, work on detours,” he said. “When water mains break unexpectedly, it can cause flooding.”
He pointed to a break on Pie-IX Blvd. in 2015 that flooded hundreds of homes.
Ouellet did not answer directly when asked by reporters later whether the Plante administration would raise the water portion of municipal taxes again next year.
“What I’m saying is the needs are increasing. After that, how we’re going to finance (the improvements) will be up for discussion. This is a transition budget.”
Before deciding how to proceed in future years, the city will take into account “Montrealers’ capacity to pay” and the city’s ability to manage the work, Ouellet said.
During the committee meeting, Opposition councillor Alan DeSousa pressed the city to lay out how much of the $36 million that will be brought in by the increase will go to improving water mains and sewers, as opposed to water-filtration plants and other infrastructure.
“They gave us an overview, but never precise numbers on where the money will go,” DeSousa, of Ensemble Montréal, said after the meeting. “That means what they’re asking for is a blank cheque.”
DeSousa said discontent over the budget is growing, pointing to a petition launched Tuesday by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation demanding Plante honour her election pledge and keep tax increases to the inflation rate.
Under the budget, the average Montreal taxpayer will see an increase of 3.3 per cent on their municipal tax bill. The Conference Board of Canada says the Montreal region’s inflation rate is expected to be about 1.7 per cent in 2018.
The 3.3-per-cent hike includes an increase in the water tax, the first increase in that part of municipal tax bills since 2013.
Last year, Montreal spent $340 million on water infrastructure. In 2018, the Plante administration has said it plans to spend about $500 million.
By law, all money collected in water taxes must go to a water fund for repairs and upgrades.
But Ensemble Montréal leader Lionel Perez noted only about half of the $340 million was used on water mains and sewers. The rest was for other work related to the water network, such as treatment plant upgrades.
He noted that the city’s capitalworks plan, which lays out plans for major infrastructure spending and is usually published before the operating budget, has yet to be made public.
Perez said that without having the capital-works plan, city council is being asked to approve a tax increase without knowing how much of it will go to the water mains and sewers the Plante administration is promising to upgrade.
“They’re trying to pull a fast one on Montrealers by saying that it’s absolutely necessary work,” but are not presenting any evidence that the extra money will go where they say it will go, Perez said.
“It’s not convincing.”