Daniel MacIsaac
Northern News Services

Inuvik (Apr 21/00) - The Town of Inuvik is proceeding to take over responsibility for utilities, and says residential water rates should not increase.

Town councillor Don Craik said talks with the NWT Power Corporation are continuing, but since the start of the month Inuvik has already assumed responsibility for operation and maintenance and taken on three former corporation employees.

"It's been hectic, and we've been meeting probably once a week for the past eight months," he said. "The handover agreement with the GNWT is the final step and we're expecting that to happen in June."

Craik said that because of outstanding questions and the need to adapt the accounting system, the corporation will likely continue to bill customers until June. Regarding comments at last Monday's council meeting that questioned the accuracy of the corporation's billing, Craik said a rate review revealed several errors.

Craik said the committee determined some of the larger businesses and operations in town were being charged the same rate as private residents. He said the discovery is good news for residents, who have been concerned by rumours of a cost hike.

"Originally, the rate subcommittee sat down and reviewed everything and it looked like we were going to have to increase rates," he said, "but it was the designers of the new hospital who inquired why they were paying so little, and we found a few more like that."

Craik said it is therefore likely residents will not see a rate increase, though he added it's too early to talk about a decrease.

For his part, Power Corp. president and CEO Leon Courneya said the billing confusion was minimal.

"A smaller number of customers (three out of 811) were under-billed due to an error," he said in a release Monday. "The corporation is working with the town and the customers to resolve this issue."

Courneya added the ongoing utilities transfer is having no immediate effects on the corporation.

"There will be no immediate impact on the corporation's electrical customers of the loss of the operating contract for the water and sewerage system," he said. "During the corporation's next rate application all the impacts on our operation will be reviewed in a public process and any required adjustments to rates will be only be made after this process."

On the subject of assets transfer, Courneya said the Power Corp. is working with the government and the town to help Inuvik find a building for its new utilador crew. He said the Power Corp. wants to hang onto the existing one for its electrical operations but will let the town use it rent-free until August.

Craik said the town wants its own building as part of the handover and Mayor George Roach has said in council that after more than 20 years of talks the deal won't be done until the issue is settled.

Asked about the town's original motivation in taking over responsibility for utilities from the Hay River-based corporation, Craik said, "We figured we could operate it more efficiently," he said. "It seemed a lot of dollars were flowing out of the community ... and we figured those administrative costs could be better used here in the community rather than flowing to Hay River."