Water and sewer rates could go up by at least 10 per cent for the next five years in Owen Sound.
Rates could also go up an additional five per cent every year after that, according to terms of a financial plan agreed upon on Monday night by city council.
The city is looking at operating and capital expenses to cost almost 158 million dollars for upgrading and maintenance of the water and wastewater systems over the next ten years.
The approved plan doesn’t tie council to that overall cost or the recommended increases.
The city will decide each year on what it can and will commit to, starting with budget deliberations later this month.
Water and wastewater superintendent Matt Prentice says between 40 and 50 kilometres worth of Owen Sound’s mains — approximately one-third of the entire system — are between 90 and 130 years old.
The rates of failure of those mains will only increase if they are not replaced.
But there are other cost factors in the numbers, presented by engineering firm Genivar.
They include both operating costs as well as capital expenditures like a six million dollar water tower on the city’s east side, a one million dollar upgrade to the east hill pumping station and millions more to upgrade the wastewater treatment plant.
Prentice says the money committed by the federal and provincial governments for that treatment plant upgrade may well be the only infrastructure money available from the upper levels for any of the work that must be undertaken by Owen Sound.
The city has spent approximately 20 million dollars over the past decade or so on projects that include an upgrade of the wastewater treatment system.
