Epcor water bills will go up starting Friday, city-wide lead water treatment begins late 2022

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Edmontonians’ water bills will start creeping up Friday, but rates would have been much higher without a one-time discount from Epcor.

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Monthly residential bills will increase about four per cent, and commercial about eight per cent, beginning April 1. A homeowner paying about $102 a month last year will be charged around $106 in 2022, and $113 by 2024, according to Epcor’s presentation. For commercial rates, a company charged an average of $560 in 2021 will pay about $603 this year and $670 by 2024.

Epcor is temporarily and voluntarily forgoing a chunk of its profits — $66 million over three years — to help keep rates affordable, representatives told the city’s utility committee last week. Discounts amount to $5.21 a month for the average residential customer or $168 over three years, or $1,259 over three years for commercial customers.

Spokesman Martin Kennedy told Postmedia on Monday the utility wanted to keep rates low but can only hold off for so long.

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“We thought one of the ways we could keep affordable rates was to temporarily discount what we earned and leave that money with customers as they went through the recovery from the pandemic,” he said.

“We can’t do that forever, I’ll be honest.”

Epcor plans to invest $1.35 billion over three years in its capital plan — about half of the funds are earmarked for replacing aging infrastructure at risk of failing, and 35 per cent for preventing stinky sewer gas from forming, and stopping corrosion, according to the presentation to the utility committee.

Councilors on Friday discussed the idea of ​​means-testing to shift the financial burden.

On Monday, Coun. Aaron Paqeutte said while municipalities do have that power, he thinks any benefits to such a program would be canceled out by the costs to set it up.

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“Theoretically, you could do it, but at the end of the day do you actually save any money? Probably not. That’s why it’s probably best left in the hands of the levels of government that are actually suited to and legally mandated to do this,” he said.

He said the city is also lobbying the Alberta government on affordability concerns: “Whether the province chooses to hear that, it’s up to them.”

Taylor Hides, press secretary to associate minister of natural gas and electricity Dale Nally, said rate caps shift the burden to taxpayers and don’t reduce current costs of utilities.

“That’s why any rate cap would be in essence be a shell game, saving Albertans nothing whatsoever in the long run as ratepayers and taxpayers are one and the same,” he wrote in an email statement. “The rate cap is akin to making future generations of Albertans pay part of this month’s power bill, and is not a sustainable path forward.”

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Hides said the former NDP government’s rate caps were a short-term solution and the UCP government’s electricity rebate will create around $280 million of relief in three months.

reducing lead

Years-long plans to reduce lead in water city-wide will finally be realized this year.

Orthophosphate — a tasteless, colorless, odorless chemical that bonds lead to water pipes and fixtures — will be added to the city’s water treatment system by late 2022, Epcor told the utility committee. Changes were prompted by Health Canada requirements reducing the allowed concentration of lead in drinking water to five micrograms at the tap, down from 10 micrograms per litre.

Epcor also plans to replace the remaining 65 of 325 high-priority service lines identified in 2019 with higher lead levels.

Kennedy said there’s no lead in Edmonton’s drinking water when it comes from the plant — it comes from the plumbing in a building or service pipes — and this new chemical is safe.

“The benefit is the security, the confidence of knowing that no matter the state of the plumbing inside your house… you will be protected by the additive being in the water supply,” he told Postmedia Monday. “You can also be confident that (this chemical) is safe and well-tested because it’s used in communities across North America and in Europe.”

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@laurby