If this guy can't save money on his water meter, who can?

Kevin Ferris thought he was the poster boy for the new water meter billing system.

The 44-year-old who works in the mining industry, lives alone, only has one bathroom and no dishwasher.  He figured he would be first in line to see his water bill shrink under the new water meter system which will kick in this September.

He was wrong. 

“The consumption on my last bill for 119 days was 6.25 m3/month versus city average of 14 m3/month, and my bill is still going up 10%,” said Ferris.  

“People are going to have massive sticker shock when they open their first bill.”

Ferris is one of the roughly 2,000 home owners who have used the water portal to gauge where their water meter will be come September. 

Ferris put in calls to city hall to try to understand why his bill would go up under this new system.

He believes the current billing model they are using is flawed. 

“The city response was that I was getting a good deal on water before and now the rates are more representative to what I’m using, but I’m not using that’s the problem,” said Ferris. 

Ferris says city officials told him the city doesn’t have numbers to indicate how many people will be seeing a water bill decrease. 

“I was told those who will see a price decrease would be a home with multiple bathrooms with low overall water consumption, so someone living alone but having a home with two or three bathrooms, that water bill will go down,” he said. 

On Monday, July 27th council approved the new rates which will kick in this September 1st. City Council approved the new rates with only councillors Mike Anthony and Mark King voting against the bylaw.

“My concern is the same as it was a couple months back: in the end, I think we ended up rushing to implement something we could have used a little bit more time on,” Anthony told BayToday.ca’s Liam Berti after that meeting. 

See that story here:  http://www.baytoday.ca/content/news/details.asp?c=82033

The Water Review Committee will be holding its next meeting on Monday, August 10th at City Hall. 

Calculate your bill here: https://secure.cityofnorthbay.ca/MyNorthBay/