Posted by Sudbury Northern Life Reporter Bill Bradley
There is a new thief operating in Greater Sudbury - water shysters.
Alastair Cook, city water compliance supervisor, enraged some
city councillors Wednesday at city council when he told them
that some city residents, even one major commercial customer,
are stealing city water. He was presenting a report on water
works in the city.
"There are an average of six tampering incidents every month. Last year staff identified 81 incidents," noted Cook.
"One large commercial industrial institutional (ICI) customer was caught," said Cook.
"They put a blow off pipe upstream from the water meter and were siphoning off 300,000 litres per day unmetered."
That upset several city councillors.
Ward 1 Councillor Joe Cimino asked what happened to the offenders.
Cook said once caught, a letter is sent to the person or business. The offender is billed for a replacement meter if the meter is damaged or tampered with. This is usually the case with offending homeowners. Then the building or home is kept on file. If they do not pay up, eventually the amount is added to their taxes, said Cook.
Cimino asked if the city bylaw could be toughened.
"Well we could advertise their names in the newspaper just like some cities advertise the men who use the services of prostitutes. We could do the same here," said Cook.
Ward 11 Coun. Gasparini argued the water thieves should be fined.
"They stole the water. Fine them."
Cook said there were no provisions in the city bylaw to fine offenders.
Ward 10 Coun. Frances Caldarelli agreed with Gasparini.
"We now have large ICI customers doing this. Why not call the police and charge them with theft?"
Cook agreed.
"The stronger the bylaw the better."
Cook did admit that water theft amounts to less than five per cent of the city's total water production.
More serious is the leaks in the aging city water infrastructure.
As an example, Cook said a major leak in the Capreol water distribution system was located. This resulted in the recovery of 1,125,000 litres per day of water.
"The problem there in Capreol is that the water pipes are buried deep. Leaks are difficult to detect. But anomalies were detected in the water flow rates by staff."
Cook said the leak could have gone undetected for years because the city did not have the monitoring equipment or the staff to find problem areas. That situation is much better now with new technology that has been purchased and sufficient staff to monitor the water system.
"Hiring the staff to find out where we are losing the water really pays off for the city."
Overall, Cook said the quality of the city's water remained excellent.
"Our water system was thoroughly inspected 11 times in 2008 (by the province). We had six perfect scores and and average score of 98 per cent."
Lead, which has been a concern of residents recently from community meetings arising from the Sudbury Soils Study, has been found not to be a problem according to Cook.
"A community lead sampling program, mandated by the Ontario Ministry of Environment, found that of 986 samples inside homes taken to date, only 12 were above standard. None of these were from the city's water distribution system," he noted.
"The results demonstrate that lead is not a problem in our drinking water systems."
