The Nova Scotia Regulatory and Appeals Board has approved increases for customers of the Region of Queens Water Utility. (Rick Conrad)

More than 1,200 water utility customers in Liverpool and Brooklyn will see a significant spike in their bills this year.

In a decision released Dec. 22, the Nova Scotia Regulatory and Appeals Board has approved an 85 per cent increase in water bills for customers of the Region of Queens Water Utility. Once the full increases take effect, it will mean an extra $300 per year for most residential customers.

The new rates took effect Jan. 1, but the board also ordered the utility to phase in the increases to 2027 to help mitigate “rate shock”. It also ordered that interest on the utility’s debt to the municipality be eliminated, and to adjust the utility’s earnings and debt forecasts.

“The Board finds that the utility is in a difficult position,” board members wrote.

“The Board also finds that, other than the minor adjustments directed above, the required revenues in the application are just and reasonable, and necessary to produce safe, reliable water. Yet its rate increases clearly fall within the definition of ‘rate shock’.”

The average residential customer will now pay $531.28 a year, an immediate 60 per cent increase. It will eventually rise to $664.08 in 2027.

At a hearing on Nov. 19, the region said the utility needed to increase rates dramatically to deal with a mounting $1.4-million deficit.

Mayor Scott Christian told QCCR this week that the board’s decision allows the water utility to pay off some of its deficit and continue to provide good-quality drinking water to its customers.

“I think it’s a fair judgement. It gets us to a place where we can run a water utility in a sustainable way, while helping to cushion the blow a little bit to the consumer in terms of the spike in that rate.”

In November, regional councillors approved a utility assistance rebate for water customers on low incomes. People are eligible for up to a $200 annual break on their water bills.

With that rebate applied, the municipality projects less than a one per cent increase this year for people in the lowest income bracket and about a 40 per cent increase by 2027.

Christian said he understands that even with the rebate, some people will still struggle with the higher water costs.

“The utility for a long time was run in a way that didn’t position us to have a sustainable, solvent utility. I understand for sure that people are having a tough time making ends meet. Any additional cost to folks for running a household is always challenging.”

The Queens Community Health Board had opposed the rate increases at the November hearing.

Board chair Tara Druzina did not want to do an interview this week, but said in an emailed statement that the board is concerned about the size of the rate increases “and the impact they will have on households already under financial pressure.”

She applauded council’s adoption of the rebate, but said the region still needs to address affordability concerns for all users.

The review board also “strongly encouraged” the municipality to begin replacing customers’ water meters, most of which are at least 50 years old.

A 2024 report for the utility found that it was losing up to 69 per cent of its treated water, either through leaks or because the old water meters were inaccurate.

“So it was a bit of a moment of clarity for me that sure, some of it is seeping, weeping, leaking, older pipes,” Christian said.

“But then some of it too is that we’re actually delivering the water and it’s being underreported. It helps us to identify an action in addressing that and getting those metres in place that can actually more accurately report that water consumption.”

Christian said the municipality will begin working on replacing those old meters.

He said he’s not sure when the rate increases will be reflected on people’s water bills.

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com

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Members of the Nova Scotia Regulatory and Appeals Board held a water rate hearing in Liverpool on Wednesday. (Rick Conrad)

If the Region of Queens Water Utility doesn’t double its rates over the next three years, the whole system is in jeopardy.

That’s what a consultant hired by the region told provincial regulators on Wednesday during a hearing into the utility’s request for an immediate 85 per cent increase, part of its overall 102 per cent requested hike in rates.

Bruce Fisher, chair of the three-member Nova Scotia Regulatory and Appeals Board panel, asked Gerry Eisnor of G.A. Eisnor Consulting, what would happen if the board held the rate increases to 15 to 20 per cent.

“I don’t want to be cynical, but really, if you cut that much out of this budget, I would be buying bottled water,” Eisnor said.

“You will not have a reliable system. 
I think if you cut this back enough, you’re either going to have a water quality issue or a water delivery issue. Either way, you’re in trouble. … This utility needs to be brought up to be funded properly so it can go forward. It will not be what I would call a sustainable, successful operation.”

Eisnor and consultant Blaine Rooney wrote the water rate study that forms the region’s application for an increase for its 1,233 customers in Liverpool and Brooklyn.

Eisnor said the Queens water utility has been undercharging customers for years, especially when compared to other municipalities like Mahone Bay and Shelburne with similar water quality.

The region made its case on Wednesday for rate hikes that the Queens Community Health Board has called “unreasonable, unjust and unprecedented”.

Even the appeals board’s Fisher referred to the application as “rate shock”.

“We don’t typically see 100 per cent rate increases,” he said during Wednesday’s hearing.

Board members questioned region officials on why they need such a large rate hike, their budget assumptions, staffing, the system’s water leaks and loss, and other issues.

They heard that the municipality has been subsidizing the water utility for at least 20 years, as losses have been covered by general revenue.

And that meant that deficiencies in the system were left unaddressed.

Until 2021, the region didn’t have a good handle on the utility’s expenses. The region’s finance director Joanne Veinotte told the board on Wednesday that when she was hired, she began to implement stricter accounting measures. 

Eisnor said there had been no inventory control over things like water meters, which in many cases are 30 to 40 years old and need to be replaced.

“I don’t think the protocols and procedures were as rigorous as they should have been,” Eisnor said. 

“It was worse than we thought,” Veinotte said. “It took us a while to sort through it.”

But when Fisher asked for specifics on exactly what that means, Eisnor and Veinotte could not provide them.

The utility is also struggling with aging infrastructure, Eisnor said, with much of the piping dating from the 1880s. 

The region says it needs to jack up rates immediately to stem a $516,000 deficit. If rates don’t rise, that deficit is expected to swell to more than $3 million by 2027/28.

The Queens Community Health Board intervened in the rate hearing. It said the region’s initial first-year 106 per cent rate hike request was too high, especially for vulnerable residents on fixed incomes.

After they objected, the region lowered its Year 1 request by taking some funds from other budget reserves and smoothing out depreciation charges over a longer period.

Tara Druzina, chair of the community health board, said during the hearing on Wednesday that she doesn’t fault the current council and staff for the water utility’s problems.

“We know this is long in coming, this has been 22 years. But the 22 years has resulted in a significant burden for our vulnerable population.”

Almost 20 per cent of water utility customers are in arrears.

She welcomed the region’s recently approved utility assistance rebate of $200 a year for people with household incomes of $35,000 or less. But she said the cap should be higher, to match the low-income cutoff for a family of four in Queens County of $48,000.

After the hearing, Druzina said she’s confident the appeals board will consider the impact on low-income residents.

“We understand that the utility needs to run a balanced budget. But now I also think that the utility and the appeals board understand that there are a lot of people out there who just cannot afford a 115 per cent increase. 
So hopefully we can strike a balance. And I’m hopeful for that, and the board seems to be siding on that as well.”

Mayor Scott Christian told QCCR that the region is trying to put the utility back on solid financial ground.

“So I think that it is a mess. It’s a mess that was a long time in the making. 
It’s going to take us a while to get out of it. All we can do is make the next responsible wise decision. And I think that the experts that we’ve convened to look at this file and the commitments that we’ve made in the future of the water utility, I think we’re headed in the right direction.”

Members of the regulatory board asked the region to provide more information on five items by Nov. 28. After that, the board has 90 days to make a decision.

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com

The Region of Queens wants to offer residents with dug wells access to low-interest loans to convert to drilled wells. (Bluenose Well Drilling Facebook page)

Queens County homeowners who want a new drilled well will eventually have access to low-interest loans through the Region of Queens.

Councillors voted unanimously at their regular meeting last week to ask staff to draft a bylaw for a water supply and septic upgrade program.

Some Nova Scotia municipalities already offer low-interest loans for residents who want to switch from a dug well to a drilled well, sometimes at interest rates as low as two per cent.

Joanne Veinotte, the region’s director of finance, told councillors that municipal staff haven’t had calls looking for help with septic systems. But they have heard from people struggling with dry wells who want a loan or grant program to help drill a new one.

“Council will have to decide, are you satisfied with providing $10,000 of assistance, or would you like to provide $30,000 of assistance, or perhaps more?” Veinotte said. 

“Because all of those things depend on how much money you are willing to loan at a low-interest rate, are you going to cover the whole bill or part of the bill? That’s a council decision that will be made through the bylaw process.”

In her report to council, Veinotte said that Queens County has received less than 40 per cent of its annual precipitation in 2025. The area is classified as having severe to extreme drought conditions.

The Municipality of the District of Lunenburg and the Municipality of the District of Barrington are two municipalities on the South Shore that offer low-interest loans for homeowners.

Lunenburg provides up to $20,000 for either well or septic upgrades at a rate of two per cent a year for a term of up to 15 years. Barrington offers a three per cent rate on loans of up to 10 years for well upgrades only. Some municipalities, like Halifax, offer help for both water and septic at prime plus two per cent.

Residents repay the loans through their tax bills.

Initially, staff recommended a program only for drilled wells. But some councillors, like Jack Fancy and Deputy Mayor Maddie Charlton, said they’d like to see septic upgrades included in the program.

“I think of in Milton in particular, there’s so many septics that are going straight into the river,” Fancy said. 

‘And that’s part of the environmental issue of it we need to clean up. And if we’re going to do this, I think we need to make this all part of it.”

District 6 Coun. Stewart Jenkins said he’d like to see the cost of a water pump and water tank included in the program.

Veinotte said councillors have the ultimate authority to draft the bylaw the way they want and to hash out the details, including how much to set aside each year for the loan program.

“You guys would talk all of those things through and decide what works best for our residents,” she said. “But absolutely, you as council have the discretion to determine what goes into what pot and how much everyone can take out.”

This is just the first step toward a low-interest loan program for wells and septic systems in Queens County.

Staff will draft a bylaw for councillors to review at a future meeting. Once councillors introduce a proposed bylaw, residents will have a chance to have their say at a public hearing before anything is adopted.

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com

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