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Anonymous opposition flows toward Ashcroft water meter grant application

During the January 13 meeting, Ashcroft village council unanimously approved making an application to the BC Water Meter Pilot Project
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The village of Ashcroft has had a water treatment plant since 2019 and is applying for funding toward a water metering project. (Photo credit: Barbara Roden)

The Village of Ashcroft's application for provincial grant funding for water metering is being met with opposition by an anonymous source. 

Last week letters were mailed to each household urging residents to attend the Monday, Jan. 27 council meeting to oppose water meters.

The letter cited that water meters would be a tax burden, that taxes would increase as a result and suggested the village should try other ways to conserve water. 

Mayor Barbara Roden said during its January 13 meeting, council unanimously approved the village making an application to the BC Water Meter Pilot Project which provides 100 per cent funding of eligible costs to purchase and install water meters up to a maximum of $5 million. 

“It was done at an open council meeting and there was a staff report explaining the reason we were applying,” Roden said. “That’s as far as we’ve moved with water meters officially.” 

Fully-funded grants do not come around often, which was another reason they wanted to apply, she added. 

A letter penned by the village's chief administrative officer Daniela Dyck about the grant application noted the village of Ashcroft has one of the highest per capita water consumption rates in Canada. 

“As our community continues to grow, the implementation of universal water metering will be a pivotal strategy to reduce overall water consumption, lower operational demands, and defer significant capital expenditures for infrastructure upgrades required to meet maximum daily demand (MDD),”  she wrote. 

Ashcroft’s drinking water comes from the Thompson River and is considered surface water. 

In 2019, the village completed building an $8 million water treatment plant because Interior Health had started mandating that potable water needed two treatments, chlorine and something else. 

“We went with membrane filtration which was fairly new at the time.” 

To support a grant application at the time, the village created a water master plan before Roden’s time on council. 

The plan indicated the village would be moving toward water metering at some point. 

Since then the village has been keeping its eyes open for grants. 

“It is specifically aimed at supporting small municipalities,” said Roden of the BC Water Meter Pilot Project. 

Water levels in the river have been “quite low” in the past few years and in the summer of 2023, the village was instructed by the province to had to reduce its water consumption because of drought that year. 

Last year in 2024, the village went to Stage 2 watering restrictions on May 1 which meant residents could only water two days a week. 

The village has made an effort to educate local citizens about water conservation by creating newsletters, information leaflets and providing free water conservation kits. 

“Water meters was always the last resort and with this grant program coming up we felt that we were well-positioned to qualify so we put together the proposal and supporting documentation.” 

She does not know who wrote the anonymous letter and when she received the letter in her own mailbox was immediately concerned. 

About a dozen people attended the meeting Monday, Jan. 27. 

“We answered the questions and said, ‘we have applied but we don’t know if we are going to be successful.;”

If the village is successful with the application, Roden said there will be many more public information sessions for the public to learn more and information will be distributed to the community. 

Presently property owners receive a utility bill in February for water, sewer and garbage. 

A single family home owner pays $550 for water. 

If metering were put in place, there would be a fixed cost lower than $550 to cover the costs to run the water treatment plant. 

Roden said above that there would be a charge for the amount they use. 

The village has researched other communities with water metering and learned most people who have average usage don’t see much change in the amount they were being charged before the metering. 

“If you use much less then you will probably pay less,” she said, adding they would follow up with other communities to find out what has worked and what did not work and to find out what residents liked and did not like. 

Should water meters be installed, the village would proceed with dummy billing for at least a year where the flat rate of $550 would still be charged, but residents would receive information about their water usage and how much they would have been charged, the mayor said. 

Prior to Monday night’s meeting, a councillor arrived upset after someone berated the councillor in the grocery store about water metering. 

“This councillor then went down to the Heritage Park to recover and the same person apparently came up, it got physical and the person pushed the councillor to the ground. The councillor did not know the person, had not seen them before,” Roden said, adding she mentioned it at the council meeting Monday night to the public, saying the actions of the person toward the councillor were “absolutely unacceptable.”  

Roden said the councillor reported the incident to the RCMP.