RISING WATER RATES IN WATERLOO REGION

Last Saturday's Waterloo Region Record carried this story "Water rates could rise 45 per cent by 2023". One of the interesting points is that rates to consumers actually are rising because of Reduced demand. Isn't that counter intuitive? The good news is that the long ago proposed pipeline to lake Erie seems even farther away then originally projected. We are also advised that the region plans on spending $103 million "between 2022 and 2040 to create new water supply systems.". This is indeed good news, depending. Are they talking shutting down their urban, contaminated wells in Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge and replacing them with new rural wells or at least moving them further outside the industrial urban areas? Or is this $103 million simply more bandaids to stickhandle around their and the municipalities and provinces failure to control polluting industries over the last fifty years? What we don't need our money being spent on is more treatment for solvent and pesticide contaminated drinking water. We need new source water and it is available albeit the cities can expect criticism from the rural areas for wanting their cleaner water.