Paying for Water in Ontario's Cities: Past, Present, and Future

Harry Kitchen
Additional contact information
Harry Kitchen: University of Toronto

No 35, IMFG Papers from University of Toronto, Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance

Abstract: Throughout much of the 20th century, water was seen as plentiful and water rates did not promote conservation. Today, water is treated as a relatively scarce resource and governments are concerned about financing new and rehabilitated infrastructure. However, most municipalities still do not set prices for water at levels that would encourage conservation, thereby allowing the overconsumption of water, and leading to increased demand for expensive infrastructure. Setting efficient prices for water, sewage collection and treatment, and stormwater runoff would include (1) multi-part pricing for water to accommodate capacity constraints, economies of scale, and peak-load demand; (2) greater use of meters and volumetric pricing for residential and commercial sewer usage; and (3) stormwater user fees based on the volume of runoff. In smaller or remote municipalities, the amalgamation, regionalization, or privatization of water and sewer systems could lead to greater efficiencies. Meanwhile, the Province should set water safety standards, coordinate water utility systems, and put in place a regulatory framework that would support necessary but unpopular increases in water rates.

Keywords: municipalities; water systems; sewer systems; stormwater; full-cost pricing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H41 H71 L95 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2017-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-reg
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published in hard copy and online

Downloads: (external link)
https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/ ... er%2035%20Online.pdf

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mfg:wpaper:35

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IMFG Papers from University of Toronto, Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Enid Slack ().