City of Yellowknife considers hiking rates for residents on trucked water service

Yellowknife city councillors are weighing whether residents who rely on trucked water and sewage service should pay more, to help cover the actual cost of those services. 

At a committee meeting on Tuesday, councillors discussed a consultants' report which suggests a 38-per-cent increase to average customer rates for trucked services. The report by InterGroup Consultants says city residents on piped water are subsidizing some of the service costs for trucked water.

The city is looking at increasing customers' rates for trucked services because they haven't been updated in over 25 years. The city is also facing a $1.9-million deficit in its water and sewer operations budget, and that's expected to increase in the future. 

The consultants recommend increasing trucked customers' bills over three years until those customers are paying, on average, an additional $693 annually. Residents in multi-unit residential buildings on piped water and commercial users would see their rates go down, while other residential users on piped service would see no change.    

The report says about 680 residents, or about four per cent of the city's population, are on trucked water service. That does not include commercial users.

Kevin Hodgins, a long-time Yellowknife trucked water customer and civil engineer, has been opposing the idea of hiking rates since city council received an interim report on it in 2023. He says it's unreasonable.

"This is about moving the burden from one to another and I think it's unfair. And I think the whole thing should be rebalanced," said Hodgins.

"Arguably we on trucked water have lived with a substandard service. We live a life with limited water, and we manage to live with using far less water than people on pipe systems." 

Hodgins says despite that, and the extra costs associated with personal home maintenance from using trucked water, residents like him pay around double the amount for a litre of water compared to customers on piped service. 

He said if the rates are increased it would be closer to triple the amount.

Residents suggest costs should be shared

About a dozen residents attended the city committee meeting on Tuesday. 

Coun. Ryan Fequet pointed to residents' submitted statements about the suggested rate hike. Some pointed out that many costs for city services or facilities are shared by residents who may or may not use those things, like a new pool or bike lanes. Fequet questioned whether the costs of water delivery service could be shared among the wider community instead of being placed only on the users of that service.

Fequet asked what a rebalance of rates might look like if costs were shared evenly among all city residents, with "a table that shows all the user rates and how they would change from their current fees."

"If we wanted one rate for all users regardless of where they lived, regardless of class, that gave us full recovery across the system and resulted in the lowest possible percent increase to all users," suggested Fequet. 

City manager Stephan Van Dine said city administration would look into it.

Van Dine also pointed out that implementing the report's recommendations could benefit some people in higher-density multi-residential units, who would see their water and sewer rates go down. 

Higher-density housing "is deemed a priority for the community," said Van Dine.

Coun. Cat McGurk expressed a similar sentiment and noted that people living in multi-residential units are typically renters while those on trucked water service often own their home. 

However, Hodgins argues that getting rid of the division of rates between groups is the right way forward. 

"I think it would be unfair if somebody were to say, 'well, I'm subsidizing your water.' Well, there's all sorts of cross-subsidy in a community network," said Hodgins.

Mayor Ben Hendriksen stressed that council won't make a decision before assessing the long-term implications, though he said he agreed with the report's recommendation to simplify rate structures.