Wasting Water In Waterloo Just Got Expensive
I recently caught a five second local TV news blurb relating to hikes in regional water prices. Unfortunately it was one of those annoying “tune in at 11 to get all the details” tidbits so I had no clue what they were talking about, and of course as per usual did not tune in at 11.
Luckily I did however remember to check out the website for the station and was able to learn more.
It seems our regional water system is due for an upgrade and it’s going to cost a bundle!
The cost of water in Waterloo Region is about to increase dramatically.
It’s expected that the cost to upgrade the Region’s water system, including the sewage treatment system, will cost more than $800 million dollars over the next decade.
The average household should see an increase of $22 dollars this year to their water bill, but it may double in the next six years.
I think we can expect to see this sort of thing a LOT more in coming years – whether it’s due to water shortages or system upgrades or anything in between, as many people have suggested, I think water is going to be the next ‘oil’.
Anyway, the timing of the announcement is interesting since I have been formulating my plans for serious water conservation this year. I’ve already been cutting back as much as possible, but once spring arrives I intend to kick things into overdrive!
You may recall my post about Val Yule the so-called “Water Woman‘. Well reading about her methods provided a lot of inspiration for me.
Once I have a place to put it (ie my gardens etc) I intend to start collecting as much of my water waste as I can.
Some ideas I have for water conservation in general:
- Collecting dishwashing water rather than letting it drain
- Catching rinse water in some sort of tub which can then be poured into a larger storage container
- Keeping buckets in the shower to collect waste water
- Installing a water saving showerhead and potentially replacing our toilets with water conserving models
- Setting up a serious rain collection system
- Plus a few other top secret methods I don’t care to elaborate on (wink wink)
I have big plans for the gardens so I will need a fair amount of water. I’ve been very aware of our water use these last few months and can see a lot of potential for collecting large quantities that will be suitable for outdoor use.
Hopefully these regional water hikes will jolt people into action on the water conservation front! Should be interesting to see.
Rest assured, I’ll be writing more posts about all of this in coming months!
Technorati Tags: water bill, water treatment, water supply, water conservation, water saving, waterloo region, water hikes, grey water, greywater, rain barrels
Written by Bentley on February 9th, 2007 with
2 comments.
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Bentley
#1. February 13th, 2007, at 8:34 PM.
Well, it won’t be cheap — but it does appear to be a great long-term investment — and definitely more likely to succeed than buckets in kitchen & shower, LOL …
http://www.bracsystems.com/home.html
And it’s Canadian-made!
.. but I’d love to have one in either case.
Haven’t yet figured out if that also means ‘canadian invented’
Cheers from J.
P.s. Sorry – don’t mean to denigrate your plans to conserve. It’s just that for most people, if it ain’t easy, we’re not likely to keep it up.