Water-and-sewer cost will rise $100 for average Winnipeg household next year

The average Winnipeg household will spend $100 more on water-and-sewer bills next year thanks to an 8.9 per cent rate hike in 2017.

Winnipeg's 2017 budget calls for the hike to help the city's water and waste department pay for billions worth of major infrastructure projects, such as the upgrades to the North End Water Pollution Control Centre.

The average household cost next year will be $1,216, up from $1,116 in 2016.

Assuming the budget is passed on Dec. 13, this would be the second of three annual water-and-sewer rate increases proposed when the 2016 budget was tabled. 

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The rate went up 9.2 per cent in 2016, resulting in a $92 annual average increase. It's slated to go up 7.4 per cent next year, which would also result in a $92 average annual increase.

The city takes $35.6 million from water-and-sewer revenues to pay for operating expenses in what's known as a dividend.

While the rate of that dividend was frozen this year, the actual withdrawal increased by $3.6 million from $32 million in 2016.

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City council's water and waste committee scrutinized the budget Monday morning. Committee chair Brian Mayes (St. Vital) said the province will help determine the size of future water-and-sewer hikes by making regulatory decisions about Winnipeg's wastewater-treatment upgrades.

The province ordered up billions in upgrades in 2003, following a sewage-treatment accident at the North End Water Pollution Control Centre.

A final decision on nutrient-removal at the North End plant could reduce the upgrade burden by several hundred million. The Pallister government has hinted it's amenable to allowing the city to remove only phosphorus from the effluent stream, as opposed to both nitrogen and phosphorus.

A majority of lake scientists consider phosphorus removal the key priority because that nutrient does the most to promote the growth of algae in lake Winnipeg.

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"If the province says don't spend ... seven hundred million on the North End, spend five hundred million because we'll lower the requirements on nitrogen, then yeah, I think we'll be seeing some relief on the rate," Mayes said.

Another provincial decision looms on combined-sewer replacements. Estimates range from $1 billion to prevent most combined-sewer outflows into the city's rivers to $4 billion to eliminate all of them.