Editor:
I am a business owner and resident of Sechelt for the past 58 years. I attended the water meeting held at the District office last Tuesday evening. Like many in attendance, I came away with serious doubts and questions.
Firstly, while the engineer mentioned the reasons to proceed with metering, he failed to mention the primary reason to not proceed with metering: the will of the public. The biggest round of applause came when someone suggested we should not install meters and, instead, put the $5 million towards increasing storage capacity. The public does not want water meters. Irrespective of any other consideration, that alone should be enough to defeat the plan.
But even if we disregard public opinion (which, by the way, is what politicians and public servants seem to do) there are other real problems with metering.
We have achieved a 50 per cent reduction in water usage without metering, merely by declaring we are at Level 4. Why go to the trouble, expense and inconvenience of tearing up every single waterline in the District to install meters when we can achieve conservation anytime we want with regulations?
And what about supply? We live in a rain forest, for heaven’s sake. We get three to four feet of rain per year. We have an abundant supply and it’s completely renewable. We just need to increase our storage capacity.
Then there is political correctness. I believe there is a political mindset at work, colouring and influencing our approach. I can almost hear them in the background, harping at the evils of over-consumption, worrying that we’re running out of water, chastising ourselves for our “wasteful indulgence.” And meanwhile, trillions of gallons of fresh water pour down from the skies, ending up exactly where it would end up if we used it first: the ocean. Fresh water is not in short supply – capacity for storage is.
The engineer said we’d save about $7 million over 25 years by installing meters. That’s $280,000 per year. Really? We’re going to dig up every single service and install meters to save $280,000 per year? Madness! And do those figures include the other hidden costs of reading the meters, processing the results and creating bills for every single user? What about the cost to monitor and replace faulty or failed meters? No, to go ahead with metering to save a paltry $280,000 a year is false economics.
At the very least, this issue needs to go to a referendum before another dime is spent on metering.
Mike Evans, Sechelt
