Lethbridge water bills to rise 18% over four years to fund wastewater plant upgrades

Lethbridge residents will see their water bills rise more than 18 per cent over the next four years after city council approved a historic $285-million upgrade to the city’s wastewater treatment plant.

The facility has not seen major work in over 40 years, and a recent report by the city’s administration showed pieces of equipment listed in “poor” to “very poor” conditions.

“The more we wait, the more it’s going to cost,” said Joel Sanchez, director of infrastructure services with the City of Lethbridge.

“The other element is that we are in a situation where we need to do this now. It’s not that if we wait, we can get anything in the future; the plant needs to have the replacement because there are significant consequences if we don’t do this now.”

Upgrades to the plant will include increasing its output capacity by about 50 per cent and a new pre-treatment facility for industrial customers.

“The growth over the last 40 years has put us in a spot where it’s time to make the next investment for the future years,” said Jason Drenth, general manager of water and wastewater with the City of Lethbridge.

“What we’re looking at doing is expanding the existing plant by 20 million litres per day to handle both residential, commercial and industrial growth for that time frame.”

The upgrades will be the largest infrastructure project in the city’s history.

To pay for the construction, the city will increase annual wastewater rates by 18.05 per cent from 2027 to 2030.

This results in average monthly residential wastewater bill increases as follows:

• 2027: $4.42
• 2028: $5.21 ($9.63 cumulative)
• 2029: $6.15 ($15.78 cumulative)
• 2030: $7.27 ($23.05 cumulative)

“They’re significant, but they will be required to fund the borrowing that comes with the $285-million project,” said Mitch Stevenson, financial planning and budget manager with the City of Lethbridge.

The design phase will begin in June, with construction expected to be complete by 2030.

“We are addressing not only the growth for the industrial but also the residential, and we are including different elements that will allow us to have redundancy to go back in the future and do the life cycle for some of the other equipment that we have at the plant,” said Sanchez.