Residential Water Metering in Vancouver: Best Practices Guide for Local Governments. Metro Vancouver Regional District, August 2019.
The snowpack on the local mountains is at 56% of normal levels, and Metro Vancouver is introducing water restrictions starting May 1. (It’s the snowpack levels that matter, not reservoir levels. Having water in the reservoir is like having gas in your tank: even if it’s full, pretty soon it’ll need to get refilled.)
On Reddit, someone suggested:
Just have per usage billing.
MVRD manages major water and wastewater infrastructure, and charges local governments for water usage. Their 2019 best-practices report makes for interesting reading.
Advantages of water metering:
Better incentives to not waste water. (Calgary reports that customers with metered water use about 60% less than customers with a flat “all you can eat” rate.)
It’s a good way to detect leaks.
Reduced consumption means less need for big projects to expand water supply, which are very expensive. Moving the Coquitlam Lake water intake to a deeper location will cost $2.3B.
It provides a way to finance these projects.
How much does it cost? About $1000-1500 per meter.
Larger-scale universal metering programs have been funded by a combination of third-party financing, government funding programs and user-pay options. The capital cost of the District of West Vancouver’s universal metering program was borrowed from the Municipal Finance Authority of BC. The District estimates that by saving 15-20% of their water expenditures through metering, they will recover the full cost of the program in approximately 12 years.
Some examples of municipalities that have pushed for universal metering:
An example of a local government that decided in the initial planning phases to implement universal water metering is the District of West Vancouver, where mandatory meters were installed on all unmetered homes (around 80% of all homes at the time) between 2005 and 2007. The District’s reasons for choosing this approach were to ensure that all of its residents had access to equitable billing based on the volume of water they consumed. In addition, West Vancouver determined that the bulk purchase of water meters offered competitive pricing when compared with the cost of purchasing fewer meters for a voluntary metering program.
The City of Richmond is an example of a local government that has taken a gradual, 15-year approach to universal residential water metering. The City started off with a voluntary water metering program in 2003 spearheaded by public interest in equitable billing. In 2005, new bylaws required water meters for all newly constructed single-family and multi-family homes and for certain renovation activities. The City achieved 70% metering of single-family homes in 2014 due to the popularity of the voluntary metering program and has now completed the path toward universal residential metering by mandating that all remaining unmetered residences become metered.
[Surrey:] In 2002, a voluntary metering program was introduced for all single-family and multi-family homes. Currently, all [institutional, commercial, and industrial] connections, approximately 73% of single-family homes, and approximately 40% of multi-family buildings within the City of Surrey are metered through the existing metering programs.
How about the city of Vancouver?
Currently, all ICI connections, multi-family buildings, and approximately 6% of single-family/duplex homes within the City of Vancouver are metered through the existing metering programs.