10 hours ago
No opt-out program for new Winnipeg water meters, report recommends
Winnipeg homeowners may have no choice but to accept new digital water meters from the City of Winnipeg, whether they want them or not.
The new meters will automatically transmit encrypted water-usage data to the city. The city had been considering offering an opt-out program, after some residents raised concerns about potential health impacts from the signals used to transmit the data, while others worried the data would not be secure.
In a report to be considered at the water and waste committee's meeting on Friday, however, city staff recommend against the idea of an opt-out program, after studying the experiences of other jurisdictions, as well as the health safety, privacy issues related to the new technology.
"Opt-out programs in other cities have shown low participation rates," Lucy Szkwarek, manager of finance and administration with the water and waste department, wrote in the report.
"These programs have also been shown to lower the efficiency of AMI technology, by adding costs to customers who opt-out, maintaining legacy systems, and by requiring additional staff to perform the related works."
Health Canada states there are no health risks from exposure to the radiofrequency from the smart meters, the report says.
An opt-out program would cost between $235,000 and $252,000 a year to maintain the old analog meters and hire a full-time meter reader to physically read the meters.
The city estimates an opt-out program would have a participation rate of 0.1-0.2 per cent, with customers who choose to opt out paying between $569 and $1,059 per year, not including the one-time opt-out fee.
Water and waste committee chair Coun. Ross Eadie says some cities allow homeowners to choose where on the property the antennas are installed, and the times of day they transmit the signal.
"What other cities have done is, they can install the antenna just on the outside of the foundation or building where it's located," Eadie said.
"Or, if an individual wants, the antenna could be set up at the property line. The other cities, they don't do that for free though."
The city's plan to replace 221,000 analog water meters with the new "smart" meters is set to start next year and take five years to complete, at a cost of $135 million.
The new meters are expected to be more accurate — old meters tend to underestimate water usage — and detect leaks more quickly than the analog meters.
Abandoned waste complaints drop
The number of complaints about abandoned garbage in inner-city Winnipeg neighbourhoods dropped by nearly half last year, after the city increased the number of proactive "sweeps" it does through targeted neighbourhoods, according to a new report.
Reports of abandoned bulky waste fell by 47 per cent from 2023 to 2024, after the city doubled the number of hours its bulky waste sweep program operates from 1,000 to 2,000 hours a year, and making the program year-round rather than seasonal.
The city also centralized the process for taking in complaints about bulky waste, with all 311 calls being forwarded to the water and waste department, leading to all complaints being reviewed within 48 hours, and cleanups completed within five days after the review.
The city's waste diversion rate ticked up slightly last year, from 27.6 per cent to 28.3 per cent. City council set a goal in 2011 to increase the amount of waste diverted from city landfills to more than 50 per cent by 2022.
Total residential waste collected increased by 4.8 per cent to 274,080 tonnes, with the average Winnipegger tossing out 244 kilograms per year.
A total of 63.3 tonnes of organic waste was collected from 16 City of Winnipeg sites between Oct. 15 and Dec. 31, after the city launched its interim organics drop-off program. More sites are expected to be added this year.
A citywide organics pick-up program is expected to be ready by 2030.
Combined sewer overflows more than doubled
The volume of diluted sewage that spilled into Winnipeg waterways last year more than doubled from the year before.
The city's combined sewers dumped 12.2 billion litres of diluted sewage into rivers in 2024, compared to 5.4 billion in 2023.
A city report, to be presented to the water and waste committee on Friday, blames wet weather for the increase.
Combined sewers carry both sewage and storm water. About one-third of the city, mostly in older areas, have combined sewers. A plan to replace all the combined sewers in the city is expected to cost between $1.15 and $2.3 billion, and could take until 2095.
