Aquatera Thoughts

The more I learn about Aquatera, the more I realize just how much the people and politicians (mostly the Mayor) here don't understand the company or its unique role.

From what I can see, this hybrid municipal/for-profit corporation has several conflicting objectives set for it.

1. It is supposed to make money for the City of Grande Prairie, the county of Grande Prairie and Sexsmith. It is required to pay these millions to these shareholders whether it makes any profit or not. (I'd love to have shares in a company that pays me dividends whether they show a profit or not.) It also pays franchise fees to the municipalities for the right to do business and administrative fees of 9% to the City of Grande Prairie. A veritable money pit with little risk to the owners... It is also responsible for all of its own debt, the cost of new infrastructure to serve a growing city and region and the cost of maintenance and replacement of current infrastructure.

2. To meet these obligations, Aquatera sells water to the public at a rate that requires approval by all three of the municipal shareholders. To get approval from the province of Alberta to take enough water from the environment, it is required to encourage the public to minimize the use of water. Several successful public education campaigns have reduced the demand for water so the company earns much less. Meanwhile the environmental and public health standard for water treatment have gone up and increased the cost of supplying this water. Aquatera is also responsible for ensuring future water supplies and is looking at ways of serving the region with water from other rivers when the current supply is not longer sufficient.

3. To make money Aquatera charges a fee for collecting sewage, treating it, disposing of the sludge and returning clean water back to the environment. It is held to the high standards of Alberta environment for what is returned to the environment, but has little or no control over what kind of toxic or hazardous waste the public chooses to dump into the system. Recent costly upgrades to the treatment system are only the beginning of what is going to be needed to truly protect the environment in the future. The income from this is also dropping since sewage treatment charges are based on the water sold at each location.

4. Aquatera also sells landfill space by charging fees to those that bring garbage to the landfill. The company''s very admirable environmental goals are to minimize the use of the landfill space by recycling or redirecting as much as possible. It has a public recycling program that is among the most successful in the province. This program is supported by minimal recycling charges to the public, income from the landfill charges, and some provincial support for some waste streams. Aquatera is also operating a small business in large garbage bin rentals and haulage. The large garbage hauling competitors in the community are conducting a campaign to get Aquatera out of that business and are diverting their business to the County landfill. The lsot revenue at the landfill is having a negative impact on the ability of Aquatera to continue its recycling and diversion programs. The City Mayor (also the Chair of the Aquatera Board) has attacked Aquatera for requesting municipal support for recycling similar to what so many other communities do as a matter of course.
The extra added complication is that the major competitor for landfill services is the County of Grande Prairie, one of the owners of Aquatera. Is this getting confusing, or what?


So why is it that Aquatera is being pilloried by its major shareholder for trying to meet all of its objectives and still maintain the principles that were set out for it when it was created? (You can find the principles and other information about the company at www.aquatera.ca. My Aquatera bill is consderably less every month than my satellite bill. I can live without TV but water and a clean environment are priceless.


If you are reading this and have any thoughts on why this is happening, please let me know.