EPCOR, The wholly owned subsidiary of the City of Edmonton, which currently runs power and water in the Edmonton area is now seeking to further tighten it's grip on the city's infrastructure by taking over it's drainage department. The city has recently agreed to allow EPCOR to pay a consultant to determine if the transfer of the drainage department to EPCOR would be a good idea. From the information provided at the council meeting it seems that the city would get a $20 million boost in the dividend it receives from EPCOR and also benefit from EPCOR taking over the drainage departments debt. What is odd is that in all the documentation I could find on this idea there seemed to be no direct benefit to EPCOR other than having more city infrastructure under it's thumb. The thing about the earlier mentioned study is that while council wasn't totally happy with the idea, they figured since EPCOR was paying for the study there wasn't any harm in letting it go ahead. Something to think about is where is that $200,000 coming from to fund the study? Since money doesn't come from nowhere, it'll be paid for by ratepayers in their water and power rates, pennies on the dollar to be sure but it'll be there somewhere. It's too bad that the councilors voted to let EPCOR study the issue, if they reject the study the money will already be spent, and they didn't seem too happy with the idea of turning over drainage anyways.
EPCOR News Release
No comments:
Post a Comment