Water Under the Bridge

I think I was the Beiseker councillor referred to by former Irricana councillor Frank Dusome, in a recent post he made on the Irricana Ratepayers web site.  I do recall discussing with him the fact that our village was buying much more water than we were selling.

What happened, there?  First and foremost, our Public Works department found and repaired a number of major leaks in the village's distribution pipes.

We also found that there were many water users in our community who were not paying their fair share, through no fault of their own. Our water metering system at that time was old and corroded.  In some cases, the meter was reading inaccurately or almost not at all.

This meant that some water users were paying the minimum on their bill when they were using much more water.  Our billing system at the time didn't pick up on the discrepancies.

I am pleased to report that we have since replaced our water metering system throughout the village with new digitized models! These new meters are very accurate and automatically relay their reading to a computer carried in a public works vehicle as it goes around town. The new meters are also tamper-proof.

I don't know if some of the highest water users in the village had inaccurate meters, but I'm very confident today that all water users in the village are now paying for what they use.