Fort St. John councillor gives notice of motion regarding sewer charges

FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. — City of Fort St. John Councillor Trevor Bolin filed a notice of his intention to bring a recommendation forward regarding sewer charges in the summer versus during the winter.

During a regular council meeting on July 10th, Bolin announced he would recommend staff review similar community sewer usage and charges, which he says was brought up to council years ago by a local golf course.

Bolin says the problem is there’s currently no way to measure the sewer usage of a residential or commercial property as far as the outflow goes.

“We’ve had phenomenal success with water meters in both conservation and ensuring that it’s a user pay system. If you want to use more, you’re going to pay more,” Bolin said.

According to Bolin, most residents’ concern is how they use the water in the summer.

Though they may be using more, residents say it’s going towards washing their cars or watering gardens instead of down the drain in their homes.

The councillor also acknowledged the importance of funding the sewer system in Fort St. John.

“When you look over the previous years, and some of the issues we’ve had with backing up or flooding that used to be on an annual basis, knock on wood, we don’t have that anymore,” Bolin said.

“There’s certainly been some benefit to having that rate that’s charged on the sewers because all of those funds go back into sewer upgrades.”

Bolin sought feedback on social media from residents by asking how much more water they use in the summer in comparison to the winter.

“Some of the people’s responses to that tell me there is a seasonal difference that I think we need to take into consideration,” Bolin said.

“The recommendation that’s going to be coming forward from the notice of motion that I made last meeting is for staff to actually pull a report with the numbers we’re looking at, here’s the budget impact, and is council comfortable with changing this.”

The motion will be discussed at the next regular council meeting on July 24th.