Chase council agreed to go with the flow and waive additional water charges incurred last year by the Art Holding Memorial Arena after a well system malfunction prevented the production of adequate ice.
At the March 11 meeting, council received a request from the Chase & District Recreation Centre Society for financial relief after a temperature issue with the wells required the arena to use village water to make ice, which caused significantly more usage than past years.
From June to September 2024 the arena used 23,300 m3, and 15,000 m3 from October to December, whereas for those same periods in in 2023, it used just 300 m3 and 700 m3 respectively. Financially, that translated to $89,357.29 for the six months over $2,848.51 the previous year.
Coun. Dan Stevens was onboard with waiving the fees that the society is a non-profit.
“I think that this path forward makes the most sense... I think by council moving in this direction that ensures that we are doing the right thing," he said.
Though not necessarily opposed to waiving the charges, Coun. Colin Connett did, however, have some questions regarding the additional usage and how it came about.
"Did you guys know that they were taking water?" he asked public works manager Mike Baker. "Did they come and say 'we're going to have to steal 1,700 litres of water every day'?"
Baker confirmed staff was made aware there were issues with the temperature of the arena’s existing water system and they would need to use some village water.
“I think the volume came in as a total surprise to staff, but we were aware that municipal water was going to be used to make ice for this year.”
Connett reiterated that arena staff should have come to council and explained the situation; however, Mayor David Lepsoe said he had been “fully aware of what was going on.” Baker added that the only financial impact from the increased water usage was the additional pumping costs and the chemicals to treat the water, “so it’s relatively negligible the additional costs that were incurred.”
In support of the motion, which ended up passing unanimously, Coun. Fred Torbohm also pointed out that waiving the additional charges or not is really a moot point in the end.
“When it all boils down to dollars and donuts, the arena is still owned by the village and we would end up just paying money to ourselves anyway,” he said. “So it really makes no difference.”
