Corner Brook gets $1.6M for water-metering program

A city on Newfoundland's west coast has received $1.6 million from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to monitor how people there use water, in an effort to cut down on consumption.

The city of Corner Brook will install metering for commercial and industrial buildings and begin a residential pilot program to keep track of the city's water use.

Woodrow French, representing the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, and Loyola Hearn, minister of fisheries and oceans and minister responsible for Newfoundland and Labrador, announced the funding for the water monitoring project Wednesday in Corner Brook.

"What you're doing is sensible, it's realistic, it's achievable and it's only a matter of all three levels pulling together to achieve the dream you have," Hearn said at a press conference Wednesday in Corner Brook.

The $1-million grant and a $600,000 loan will come from the Green Municipalities Fund, money from the government of Canada that funds private and public climate protection projects. The water monitoring comes as Corner Brook plans a new $36-million water treatment plant, scheduled to be running by 2011.

Mary Ann Murphy, deputy mayor of Corner Brook, said water treatment is costly and the city will use the water monitoring program to help cut down on waste.

"We don't have a water shortage, but what we do have is water wastage," Murphy said. "So we're trying to find out where we can eliminate the wastage."

City officials anticipate full industrial and commercial metering could decrease water consumption in Corner Brook by 10 per cent, while residential metering could decrease consumption by 20 to 30 per cent.

The city has hired an engineer to oversee the metering program.