Guest Column: EWUA Roundtable Needed to Address Water Usage Rates

— by Lesley Liddle —

To the Water Board, and EWUA Members:

I read through the latest attachment from the EWUA, sent late last night, a missive selectively reflecting the board’s right to enforce this guest house initiative on all EWUA members with guest houses. I see confusing bylaw revisions and something of a smoke screen to deflect the basic fact which is so important to recognize.

These 1980 revisions. and later additional amendments are not really created to be equal or fair, and do not address actual amounts of water used by unique tax parcels, nor are they designed to be water conservative; in fact a lavish mansion built with many bedrooms and bathrooms is required to have only one meter and one fee – unless it adds a second dwelling onto its property.

A tiny single bedroom home with an equally tiny guest house, which will always use very little water, will be required to have an extra half meter and a monthly surtax fee just because there are two dwellings on the property, even though both small houses together use one quarter the amount of water used by the larger house.

This rate structure needs to be changed. New consideration should apply to parcels that have small homes and small auxiliary dwellings which are conscientiously using conservative water measures that lower their water consumption. Low use categories should be created to reflect and promote conservation of water and to support those who do have very small homes whether by necessity or choice.

The fact is that we are becoming a divided island in which only the rich will own houses and survive the cost of living here. The whole fee structure itself should be examined and upgraded. We members need to get involved and work this out together.

The only way that monthly water fees can possibly be fair across the board is by acknowledging and charging each parcel for the actual amount of water used. If that use goes beyond its original intention, then extra meters and fees can be considered.

When you go to the store, it doesn’t take one and a half cars to get there, and if you then buy one potato the total cost will hopefully not be the same as if you had purchased twenty potatoes. For each potato there is a cost. It also does not require one and one half persons to get this potato to the checkout counter. In terms of fee for service, having Medicare insurance when I go to the local clinic to see a doctor I pay a single minimum charge for my visit. If I require a longer more specialized visit with another doctor my fee goes up to another level. I am one entity and get charged as if I am one person. My tax parcel is also one entity and that was decided many decades ago.

When high water usage creates a red flag that is when meters or fees should change appropriately. My tax parcel has always had one electric meter and one water meter. Never has my level of usage of utilities been more than minimal so why should I be charged as if my parcel was one and a half parcels – when it most surely is not?

I believe that rather than just grousing about this initiative we must have a round table discussion with open and fair minds and come up with fresh ideas befitting and reflecting our island. Just because some people have already bowed to pressure and other islands use outdated methods for fee structures does not make this initiative viable.