Yellowknife (Mar 21/03) - One of Inuvik Gas' largest customers is irate over the proposed price hike, but another says the price of gas is still better than the alternative.

At last Wednesday's regular meeting of council, councillors voted unanimously to file a formal complaint with the Public Utilities Board in an attempt to stop the proposed gas increase.

Clarkson said the town spends about $200,000 per year on natural gas and the proposed increase represents about a $90,000 hit to the town's coffers.

"We've converted pretty much all our buildings and we've converted the utilidor," Clarkson said.

The Midnight Sun Recreation Complex represents about half of the town's utility payments, costing about $100,000.

"The other fuels have a huge transportation cost, plus there's a national and international market for that," he said. "Natural gas still costs less, but it also costs much less for them to produce it."

He said a fair comparison for pricing the product would be a comparison with propane, heating oil and natural gas in Alberta because there is a competitive market there.

While the price of Inuvik's water and sewer have not risen, but the costs to heat water in winter and electricity costs have gone up. Because they had an increase in users over the last few years, the revenue has increased, so there is some cushion, but little room for expansion.

"We've also been able to get some federal infrastructure money to replace the utilidors, so with all of that, the water is holding its own," he said.

Housing corp happy with gas

The Northwest Territories Housing Corporation has 255 housing units in Inuvik and they have all been converted to natural gas, said executive manager Vickie Boudreau.

"We finished all our conversions two years ago," Boudreau said.

"We have seen substantial savings over past few years compared to fuel oil."

"We're very comfortable with the gas."

The housing corp. began conversion two years ago and even with the capital expense of conversion, Boudreau says, it is still saving about $20,000 to $40,000 per year on heating costs.

Should the price of utilities escalate, she said the price of rent would not increase, but the department would have to find new sources to cover the costs.

"Our rents are fixed based on income and they would not change," Boudreau said.

"We would have to take money from other areas if it went up drastically."