Town forcing Lower Base residents to hook up to utilidor

MICHAELA RODRIGUE
Nunatsiaq News

IQALUIT — The days of trucked water and sewage are coming to an end for residents of Iqaluit’s Lower Base neighbourhood.

But the luxury of piped service will come at a cost to Lower Base homeowners.

Earlier this month, the Town of Iqaluit sent out notices to Lower Base homeowners. The notice told homeowners they must hook up to a new piped water and sewage system within the next three years. There are 61 houses in the area.

It could cost residents between $12,000 and $20,000, said John Jacobsen, president of Tower Arctic Ltd. Tower Arctic has been contracted by the Town to install the pipes.

Jacobsen stressed that each house will have a different cost, depending upon how far it’s located from the muncipality’s main pipe.

The Town decided to install the new pipes at the same time as the construction of an new Urbco building behind Iqaluit House. Money for the new pipes will come from federal infrastructure dollars, and Urbco.

But homeowners still have to foot the bill to hook up their house to the pipe system, and they only have three years to do it.

After three years, the Town plans to cease trucked service to the neighbourhood. The switch to piped service is supposed to mean big long-term savings for the Town, but it will also mean a hit to homeowners’ pocketbooks.

One resident said he’ll likely have to “wait ’til the last minute” before he makes the switch. And another said residents should still have a choice between trucked service and the utilidor.

“I’m not going to have any choice but to wait,” said homeowner Frank Hunt. Like other residents, Hunt said he’d like to have utilidor service, but at its current price tag he can’t afford it right away.

The Town has advised residents to contact contractors to receive estimates for the cost of the work. Residents who hook up to the system this August, while the pipes are still exposed, are likely to be charged less money.

Colin Macdonald would like to get his house hooked up as soon as possible to cut the price, but he said “it all depends on the price.”

And Macdonald said residents should still have the option of using trucked service.

“I think they should say it’s optional. It’s quite a lot of money for some people,” he said.

Another resident, Brian Twerdin is also waiting to find out what it will cost him, but he said he’s looking forward to not running out of hot water.

“There have been times I’ve run out of water and I wished I was on utilidor,” he said.

But to take advantage of any cost savings, homeowners must move quickly Jacobsen said. Contractors need time to order materials on the sealift, and the pipes must still be exposed for the homeowner to get the best possible price.

“Time is really of the essence here. If they leave this ’til August and September and make a decision, they may have their service installed this year, but they may not,” Jacobsen said. “We appreciate that the homeowners are under the gun and we’re all faced with the same situation,” he said.

The elimination of trucked service is expected to save the Town a lot of money. One study showed it costs the Town four cents for every litre of water delivered by truck. It will cost only 1 cent per liter of piped fluid.

“With the town developing as quickly as it is, it’s getting very, very expensive to continue to truck services,” said Matthew Hough, Iqaluit’s project co-ordinator.

And the Town is now making piped service a condition of new development, Hough said.

“We’ve made it a solid requirement of any new building. There’s a significant stance that we’re taking right now to make sure that the municipality isn’t put on the hook for the expansion of the town,” he said.