Charlottetown urges stragglers to get water meter hooked up

​The City of Charlottetown is behind schedule with its mandatory water meter program.

The city had hoped to have all households hooked up by now, but there are about 750 customers who still don't have a water meter.

"We are constantly out there reminding people that it is something that they need to have done," said Richard MacEwen, manager of the Charlottetown Water & Sewer Utility. 

"We have called, we have left letters, we have knocked on doors," he said. 

He said in total, the city has about 10,000 customers, so only having hundreds left is still progress.

The city is spending about $4 million on the water meter program. There is no cost to the customer to get one installed. 

'We're seeing great results'

The Charlottetown Water & Sewer Utility said it's already seeing evidence that water meters are reducing water consumption to levels last seen in 2000. 

"We're seeing great results with respect to our water conservation program and also our leak detection program," MacEwen said.

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Some customers 'reluctant'

The city is currently charging an extra fee to customers who don't have a meter. There's a $50 per quarter surcharge, and the utility has collected $70,000 in surcharges so far. 

"There are customers who are reluctant to have a meter installed," MacEwen said.

He said although some believe water metering will raise their bill, it usually stays about the same. 

"Previously our flat rate was based on what we thought would be the average consumption for four people in a home," he said. 

Accountability to province

The province put conditions on Charlottetown when it wanted permission to have another well field to increase its water supply. Some of the conditions were to implement water conservation and leak detection programs, MacEwen said.

"It was accountability." 

MacEwen said water meters will allow the city to develop. 

"There was a time when we were actually looking that we needed to reduce the development within the City of Charlottetown because we were at the limits of our water supply capacity."

Within the next month the city expects to pump water from the new well field in Miltonvale. 

MacEwen said the metering program has almost had the same effect of bringing in another well field. 

"It's really changed how we look at water supply." 

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