The Town of Canmore has partnered with other municipalities in Alberta to create a framework for comparing municipal services to gauge how efficiently and effectively they are delivered.
The Municipal Benchmarking Project has been in the works since 2012, with 14 other communities also participating, including Banff, Airdrie, Cochrane, Lethbridge, Beaumont, Okotoks, Red Deer and Wetaskiwin.
Earlier this month chief administrative officer Lisa de Soto presented the very first report from the project on drinking water, noting the endeavour was more complex and time consuming to complete than originally thought.
“It has not been an easy process,” de Soto said. “It started off as something we thought would be fairly simple and straightforward to promote best practices and measure ourselves against each other. It turns out comparing apples to apples isn’t easy when services are delivered differently and different factors change how services are delivered.
“So it has taken us much longer to be able to stand in front of you with data.”
Council and Mayor John Borrowman were pleased with the results of the first report, especially the fact that Canmore has the third lowest average water bill per month for residential users.
In 2014, the cost for an average 19 cubic metres of potable water per month for residents was just over $30. Banff was the lowest at $24.45 and Wetaskiwin the highest at $58.75.
“That is a good news story,” Borrowman said. “All this information will be really useful.”
The benchmark project, said de Soto, was developed to help promote the understanding of best practices, identify opportunities to improve, provide objective evidence to address questions from council, staff and the community on service levels and costs and demonstrate transparency, accountability and value for money.
The very first report looked at municipal drinking water and de Soto said the process of creating consistent definitions for data sets and identifying service areas was slow, but necessary to ensure accurate analysis and comparisons.
Manager of public works Andreas Comeau went through the data in detail related to drinking water service – which is the treatment and distribution of potable water. In total, six efficiency measures were looked at and four effectiveness measures, and then compared with the other communities.
Canmore has a treatment system that is split into two – groundwater that is treated at pumphouse one near the CP Rail tracks and surface water from the Rundle forebay treated at pumphouse two.
“And distribution is the balance of the system, so once it leaves the treatment plant and makes its way to individual homes,” Comeau said.
Total water system costs are measured per megalitre (ML) – or 1,000 cubic litres – which is a significant volume of water. Total costs also include amortization, overhead and indirect costs.
Canmore’s total water cost in 2014 was $1,310 per megalitre, which is lower than the median cost of the City of Airdrie at $1,942 per ML. The range of costs in 2014 for water for the municipalities in the project was $576 to $3,322 per ML.
“As you look at the spectrum of municipalities involved in the process, there is quite a range,” Comeau said. “Some have high treatment costs, other high amortization. We are comparing ourselves, but there are a number of differences between each.”
Some of the differences include water source – for example, Banff’s drinking water is exclusively groundwater and that has a lower treatment cost compared to surface water. Another factor is the amount of water being treated – the more water being used by the system, the lower the cost per megalitre.
The older the system, the more maintenance costs and the newer the system the more amortization costs, Comeau added. Population density is also a factor, he said, as the more spread out a community is, the more pipe is needed to pump water to homes.
When it comes to treatment, Canmore spends $446 per ML to treat water, which is below the median in comparison to others as a result of the high quality of water the community has access to. Distribution costs for Canmore are the lowest of the comparison group at $11,904 per kilometre of pipe.
The report looked at water usage and water main breaks as well. Water main breaks, said Comeau, are closely related to the age of infrastructure and Canmore’s numbers are just above average for age and just above median for the number of breaks. With water main breaks trending upward, leak detection and repairs are important, but so is replacing aging infrastructure.
“As we delay the replacement of deep utilities, this trend (water main breaks) will continue to go up,” Comeau said. “It would be beneficial for us to follow the course of regular repairs and maintenance.”
Finally, water loss in the system was measured and for Canmore, 29 per cent of water leaving the treatment plants is lost or unaccounted for through aging metres, structural fires or theft. The municipality does have a leak detection and repair program that is administered by its contractor, Epcor.
Future benchmarking reports council can expect to see are for service areas of wastewater, roadways, snow and ice, solid waste, police, fire, transit, parts and recreation. Those reports will be released as they become available over the next six months.
Go to www.canmore.ca to access the full report.
