There is a great deal of concern in our community that the expense of the proposed Wellington Water Treatment Plant will fall directly on the shoulders of the people who pay water bills in the County. Obviously that is not a viable model for financing a major infrastructure development. You can’t ask under 6500 individual households to foot the bill for $150 million.

The County has laid out the financing of this project clearly. It relies heavily, to the tune of 75 per cent, upon the Development Charges paid by developers who intend to build here. These are not imaginary developers. They are at Port Picton, at Tulip Estates, at West Meadows, at Cork and Vine, and at Base31. To name just the most obvious ones. And the ones already on the County’s application portal. There are others.

There are two important things to consider when discussing the cost of water going forward in the County.

Water treatment and delivery is inherently expensive. There will always be significant capital costs to maintain and upgrade water and wastewater infrastructure. There is no choice about the ongoing maintaining and replacing of such infrastructure as it ages. The Picton WTP, built in 1928 and refurbished at various times over the last century, is now at the end of its functional life. It must be replaced by 2032.

Shire Hall is anticipating the costs of replacing the Picton WTP, as well as development growth in the County, through its proposal that the new Wellington WTP be constructed to serve Bloomfield and Picton for the foreseeable future — into the 2050s.

This is an expensive project, but there is an opportunity at hand to get most of it paid for.

Proceeding now with infrastructure upgrades and improvements ensures growth pays a portion of these costs. Mark Kerr, speaking for Shire Hall, explains, “if we build now, 75 per cent of the total costs can be paid for by developers of new homes. The other 25 per cent is the portion that benefits existing users and is already built into the current water and wastewater rates.”

In other words, the portion that falls to water users is already in the budget. It will not affect water rates (beyond adjustments for inflation).

If the County delays, if the County does not seize this development opportunity, then existing customers must cover the majority of the bill to maintain and replace existing infrastructure—again, there is no choice about maintaining and replacing it. That would have a huge impact on water and wastewater rates.

This is the most important news that ratepayers need to have: not proceeding with development plans will be very expensive to ratepayers, whereas proceeding will protect them from increases.

Some worry that the promised development will not come through or will not come through in time, and therefore the lucrative Development Charges will not be there to pay for the infrastructure.

Shire Hall has a plan for this unlikely event.

The financing of the WTP includes a formula that anticipates slow development in order to protect ratepayers from having to bear the cost. Mr. Kerr explains, “when there is a development charge (DC) in place, we can fund the debt servicing from another source (i.e. reserves) and then pay the reserve back with the DCs as they are collected. In the event that there is slow development, we would use reserves and then the DCs to pay back those reserves over time.”

Why do we have to build infrastructure “on spec,” as it were, anticipating funds rather than waiting until we have them in hand? Development Charges are defined as a “recovery” tool. They are paid when a building permit is issued. A permit cannot be issued to build where there is no infrastructure.

These developers have made significant financial commitments to the County in order to ensure their right to build once the infrastructure is in place. And before they build, they will pay development charges that will cover the infrastructure that will benefit current as well as future water users.

The system is set up to pay for itself. It has a Plan B that anticipates possible slow development. The costs will not be downloaded onto ratepaying households.

What do we get if we “press pause” on the Wellington WTP project? Higher water rates because without the infrastructure there will be no development and without the development there will be no Development Charges. In this scenario, who will pay for necessary maintenance and upgrading of the water and wastewater infrastructure—which includes a whole new plant for Picton? The existing ratepayers.

What do we get if we proceed with new infrastructure that will accommodate development? Steady water rates going into the future, plus the benefit of the upgrades that will be required before the decade is out.

Residents of Picton and Bloomfield will also benefit from a much cleaner supply of water from Lake Ontario, compared to Picton Bay. Wellington’s water requires fewer chemicals to make it drinkable. But that is a story for another day.