Regional District Bullies

Noun and verb.
Yup.
Directors and the public haven't got a chance against bureaucrats' manipulation of facts and figures.

Greater Vernon Advisory Committee directors must want the "private fire hydrant" issue to simply go away.  Almost as much as the water engineers.  And the owners of those hydrants.

So directors need to be forgiven for being fooled...yet again.

Let's face it...seeing the same "report" preamble, often comprising nine or 10 pages--meeting after meeting--with spurious and, yes, unsupportable added comments from staff just makes eyelids droop.   Directors couldn't be blamed for thinking "Wake me up when it's over".
Besides, directors have bigger fish to fry, especially with the failed water referendum.

But if the history of the privately-owned fire hydrant issue is any indication of how untransparently the regional district manages critical issues, the result more accurately resembles a choreographed stage production than procedural fairness in policy.

I'll try to help uninitiated readers catch up...before their eyelids slam shut:
Skip the history if you know the background.

"Private unmetered fire hydrant" at Highlands Golf on Buchanan Road

History:  During the Highlands Golf development permit in 2000/2001, a requirement was to install a fire hydrant on the property "x" feet from the clubhouse front door.  That required Highlands, on the north side of Buchanan Road, to pay the water authority to provide a new pipe under Buchanan Road to the new fire hydrant from the 300 mm concrete pipe located on the south side (Coldstream Ranch fields side) of Buchanan Road.  And a "hot tap"--meaning that Duteau Creek water couldn't be shut off to the North Okanagan while the 6-inch fireline pipe connection was made.  The 6-inch fireline pipe would terminate at Highlands' fence, and it was our responsibility to construct the remainder of the pipe and the fire hydrant.  Fair enough.  I was instructed of the fire hydrant specs, and that the hydrant did not require metering.  All costs were paid by Highlands (I think it was ~$26,000 but nobody recalls exactly).  The bonus to the water authority, according to NOWA's--formerly VID--officials, was that they would receive a "core sample"--from the bore into the 300 mm pipe--that they had never before had access to.   Dig day for the road crossing was abuzz with activity...backhoe, numerous water authority workers with shovels, several vehicles from the hot-tap company--a private contractor from the Lower Mainland--flag persons west and east and, easily, five or six NOWA pick-up trucks carrying numerous supervisors with cameras in hand to record the process "we've never done before".   In a matter of hours it was over.  The next day, the Highlands contractor installed the fireline extension on our land--a distance of approx. 50 feet from the fenceline terminus of NOWA's fireline--and installed the hydrant.  The requisite NOWA inspection, before lines and connections could be closed, occurred when a supervisor attended with an hourly worker.  They took measurements and inspected connections, after which the hourly worker tested the new hydrant by attaching a large diameter hose.  The spray of high-volume water was dispersed by the worker so that the golf course's newly seeded #9 fairway and teebox didn't lose grass seed.  The supervisor recorded findings, stating "ok" to us, and our contractor closed the ditch and fire hydrant while the NOWA supervisor witnessed the entire process to completion.  The NOWA supervisor added that the 300 mm mainline core sample evidenced their pipe was in good condition "after all these years".

Highlands Golf complied with the remaining DP requirement of landscaping along the golf course roadfront and clubhouse inspection after which we received permission to open the commercially-zoned business.

Years passed with only an annual invoice to remind me we even had a fire hydrant (fortunately...a fire never occurred) noted as "private fire hydrant annual tax" from NOWA (oddly, one year from the District of Coldstream).

In 2002 the amount was $225 if I recall correctly.  Hydrant taxes for successive years were:

2003 through 2006 = $275.00 annually,
2007 and 2008 = $290.00 annually,
2009 = $306.00,
2010 = $333.54,
2011 = $383.80,
2012 = $454.38.

Discovery of Procedural Unfairness:
During 2013, I discovered (quite by accident) that another (unnamed) business with a privately-owned fire hydrant "had never received an invoice for hydrant tax...ever...and we've been open longer than Highlands Golf".  A short while later, yet another business stated the same comment to me.  The annual Water Rates were available on the RDNO website.   I recall seeing a table of rates that were headed (something like) that included, among other sizes, "Fire hydrant unmetered 150 mm" with the next year's rate being approx. $470, after which the next year's sheets stated $560!!  Also noted several years earlier on the rate sheets was something like "charge to fire departments" for public (community) hydrants which were all unmetered (naturally).

A reader, at this point, would probably wonder why I was banging my head against the wall known as bureaucracy.
Simple...I have a responsibility to my business to control overhead, and this fire hydrant tax was beginning to burgeon out of control; certainly, out of any logic for the increases.

So, believing Highlands Golf had been charged the annual taxes in error, I sent an invoice on September 17, 2013 to the Regional District of North Okanagan in the amount of $3,382.72, comprising "charged in error, annual utilities invoice, private unmetered fire hydrant."  The reply I received was that the invoice would not be paid as I had not been charged in error.

It is important to note that the charge to fire departments listing in RDNO's rate sheets ended around 2012 or perhaps 2011.  But the fact remains that what I had seen previously as a charge from the water authority to each community/fire department for each of their fire public hydrants was no longer listed.  Also important is the fact that it took approximately one year of enquiries to discover the following:  that each community/fire department is charged "x" dollars from the water authority for each public unmetered fire hydrant.

After several bureaucrats ignoring my request for the "x" amount which had disappeared from the rate sheets, I was rewarded when I asked Coldstream Councillor Maria Besso to look into it.  She herself expressed surprise that it took a long time--and several requests of an official--to get the amount.    It was $133.00!

So, while the 2014 invoice to me for an unmetered private fire hydrant was to increase to $560.00, each community was charged $133.00 for each unmetered public fire hydrant...and those fire hydrants received annual maintenance from GVW, which I did not.

I appealed to the District of Coldstream that a private hydrant is infrastructure in their community, just as public hydrants are.  Everyone benefits from infrastructure, not just the hydrant owner.  That fell on deaf ears, despite proof from these two relevant arguments:

• The construction of additional public hydrants on Buchanan Road, one west and one east of Highlands (both constructed after mine), have considered mine "as infrastructure", as distances from and between all three have proven.
• Fire insurance companies provide a discount (up to 50% in some cases) when a residence is located "within 300m (984.252 feet) of a fire hydrant".  No statement on whether it's private or public.

A quick look at Google Maps shows Highlands Golf, smack in the middle of this map.  Notice the proximity of the neighbour's home to the west (left) and that of the neighbour's home to the east (right).
https://www.google.ca/maps/@50.2181468,-119.1667864,1766a,20y,41.18t/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en

Yet Coldstream's then-newly-hired bureaucrat came up with:

• "the private hydrant does not cover any additional residential properties".  Abject nonsense! Obviously deduced from sitting at a desk versus getting into a vehicle and actually measuring distances.  The fire department would attack a fire at my west neighbour's residence with MY hydrant, located 60 metres from his house, versus the public hydrant west of him which is 300 metres distant.  That's proof my private hydrant provides fire protection to the community, not just myself.

• The Coldstream bureaucrat's report contained comments about "leaking and unauthorized use like driveway cleaning".  Bloody nonsense!  Driveway cleaning?  Ridiculous!  In 13 years it's never been used for anything!  Unless they're thinking of our 2000/2001 inspection by officials after the hydrant was constructed and the operator sprayed water all over the place!  That is the sole time it was ever used! And presumably public hydrants aren't leaking either as they were also inspected by GVW. 

•  "Even the existence of any hydrant becomes political", the Coldstream bureaucrat also noted in the Report.  Huh?  What is that a reference to?  That Coldstream might remove a hydrant?

I'm sure I can be forgiven for uttering something really profane after that balderdash!

Yet another straw was about to break the proverbial camel's back:  Around that time, Greater Vernon Water issued a notice to the irrigating public that they called a "watering days correction".  Their reason?  "to promote fairness" according to the water authority.

Fairness?
Only when it's slanted in the water authority's favour!

So...Coldstream wouldn't declare my private fire hydrant as infrastructure, which would have in my view made it eligible for the $133 public hydrant rate.

So the next step was to donate my private fire hydrant to them, at no cost, and provide them with a statutory right-of-way to it (it's 4 feet from the edge of my driveway, 50 feet up from the fenceline).
They said "no thanks", so I offered to donate it to the regional district where Greater Vernon Water "resides".  They said they weren't interested because they only supply water to hydrants, that they don't own any hydrants.   (Coldstream municipality had said Coldstream doesn't own the fire hydrants, that GVW owns them)!

So in September of 2014, I appealed to the Greater Vernon Advisory Committee directors for procedural fairness (of the tax $560 versus $133).  Then-director and former Vernon mayor Sawatzky asked after my "presentation" last September..."what do you GET for that tax?"  My reply:  Nothing, no servicing, nothing.  Bureaucrats first reported there were 17 private fire hydrants, several weeks later, there were suddenly 123 private fire hydrants, from the same bureaucrats!  It's worth mentioning here that the letter from GVW engineers to Highlands Golf--declining reimbursement of my $3,382.72 historical payments--did thank me for bringing to their attention that some private fire hydrant owners had not been charged, and that the omission would be 'corrected', with invoices sent out to those missed by the end of 2014! 

Directors weren't aware their communities were being charged $133 for each and every public hydrant within their jurisdiction, and didn't seem surprised that the rate sheets no longer included listing the charge.  GVAC chair, Juliette Cunningham, after hearing my presentation, stated "it (the tax) certainly seems exorbitant..."

So the water engineers were up next...having had a month or so since the Agenda was created to formulate their responses.

Are you sitting down?
Preferrably with a stiff drink to get you through pages 38 to 54 of their "Report(s)", which I've summarized below under a catchy title of my own making:

Bureaucrats Grasp at Straws:
- A draft Greater Vernon Water Private Hydrant Policy No. ENG-WTR-004 was produced, for GVAC approval.
- Two meetings (September and October) led to bureaucrats stating that committee members had asked for a policy and procedure to monitor annual maintenance and fire hydrants and fees charged by other communities.  If my recollection is more accurate than bureaucrats', I believe committee members actually asked why there was such a disparity between the $133 and $560 charges and what other communities charge.
 
So here's where the stiff drink will assist in trying to follow bureaucrats' "reasoning":

- Only Fire departments are permitted to use fire hydrants without a permit.  Makes sense.
- Other private hydrant use requires a permit, with use including backflow protection and a meter during hydrant operation.  Permits were to be obtained from Vernon, Coldstream or GVW and must give operators permission to access the property, and install and remove the backflow protection and meter box.  A fee would be required for rental of the backflow protection and meter box.  No mention of what the rental fee--nor permit itself--would be, yet directors are to consider this policy without that information?  
- The "city" operator will record the water usage and the customer account will be charged for the usage.  Using an official "operator" lets the utility know where and for what water hydrants are being used, to "manage for demand spikes".   No mention of what the consumption rate will be, yet directors are to consider this policy without that information?
- Hydrants that are metered will still require a permit, but will not be charged for the hydrant consumption.  Presumably because any meter has a base rate without using any water?
But all this "permitting" requires staff time, monitoring the use, and to ensure the hydrant is ready for fire department use afterwards.  This, despite GVW stating they want no responsibility in case of liability...in case they forget annual tracking/maintenance.  Yet they do not recommend increased monitoring of hydrant use, (despite wanting to manage for spikes), however if additional staff time is needed, costs to the utility would have to be recovered.
- Owners are required to maintain hydrants according to BC Fire Code and NFPA and private insurance requirements, and that--to reduce liability in case GVW forgets to track inspections--maintenance or specific conditions are between the owner and the fire insurance company, with no responsibility accruing to GVW.  My insurance company places no conditions on hydrant; they're glad I have one!
- If any connection is made to a private hydrant without a permit (other than Fire department use), backflow protection or meter, the owner could be liable for fine(s), and confiscation of equipment.  Some people might want to know what the fines are; perhaps Directors too?

Tarring Everyone With the Same Brush:
My comments are added in bold text:
- GVW reports that hydrants are often used for flushing pipes, construction and maintenance work.  They call that "mixed uses".  They allow one filling station for water hauling trucks, and city operators to use hydrants for street cleaning, as well as contractors to apply for a permit to use a fire hydrant and they recommend to strata complexes to use them for flushing of lines.

- "Illegal Use":  They state their operators have seen private hydrants being used for water hauling and street cleaning of parking lots and private roads, presumably hired by the private owner, as well as contractors they hire to flush their pipes!   Even after their operators have reported illegal use, GVW have done nothing about it, so everyone now gets tarred with the same brush.  Illegal use!  Oh, for heaven's sake!  I wouldn't even know how to turn the hydrant on!  No revenue is collected from unmetered private hydrants...same with public hydrants!!  "However, GVW does collect an unmetered fire main rate in lieu of water use fees charged directly".   Finally, a reason for the $560 annually!  But if it's "in lieu", then during an annual permitted inspection where a water meter is placed, a dollar amount would NOT be charged for inspection consumption?  Or would the $560 tax be decreased by the amount "in lieu"?  Charging for both is duplication and unfair!
Agreed that illegal use is theft!  They state in 2013 an illegal use caused 4 frozen hydrants in the BX and one that was then unavailable during a fire.  What did GVW do about the theft, since they had a Hydrant Tampering Fee in place?  Apparently nothing!  No fine, no "policy" change until 2015 if it occurred in 2013!

- Damage to private hydrant equipment often goes unreported, with no post-use servicing.  Huh?  

- Impractical to restrict private fire hydrants to fire department use as the owner is required to flush lines and perform annual maintenance, and potentially other uses.  Huh again?  Other Uses?  Flush lines?  Nobody ever used ours for anything except the initial test to see if it worked.

- "Currently most unmetered private hydrant use is unaccounted for...(illegal use / leaks)".  However, where there is more than one dwelling per lot or the service exceeds 50 metres, a meter vault will be required (2014) at owner's cost...means that new private hydrants are metered at the fenceline.  This, despite fire department complaints that meters can jam/restrict flow during a fire emergency!  No wonder GVW is worried about liability!  GVW wants approval of recommendation #1 that if a property has a permanent meter box, that a temporary one not be required.  This would place considerable hardship on owners, expensive equipment placed where there is no electrical connection... to keep meter from freezing!  Impossible!

-Hydrants must be colour coded based on flow and identification number stamped on hydrant, and hydrants may serve a dual purpose as a blow-off for flushing.  But isn't "blowing off for flushing" illegal use, despite GVW recommending that for strata complexes?

-The cost to supply water to an unmetered fire main is unknown.  The fee supports lifecycle costs to maintain and replace the piping infrastructure required to support fireflow standards set for fire fighting.  A 40 year lifespan would require $250 annually for a 150 mm main.  Others (non-domestic) are charged $400 annually because "consumptive costs" are considered part of the fee to reflect that the hydrant provides unmetered fire flows.  Another report stated they didn't know the costs to supply water to a private hydrant!  Huh?  Why wouldn't the cost to supply water (fire service) to a private unmetered fire main be the same as it costs to supply water (fire service) to a public unmetered fire main?


Hopefully the reader is still awake after this summary...OMG, that was a summary?  Yup!

So is it any wonder that Greater Vernon Advisory Committee directors--who are faced with 80 to 90 page agendas each month--can't wait to get onto the next topic?

Hopefully, directors will see through the smoke 'n mirrors of GVW's gouging, and remain interested in providing procedural fairness (where GVW has not) for private fire hydrant owners.

"I bet the Ombudsman of B.C. would be interested in declaring the hydrant as infrastructure," offers Kia, "considering your neighbours receive a fire insurance discount too."

Perhaps, Kia, perhaps. 

And perhaps Directors will wear pink anti-bullying shirts to the next meeting.
Because they're being bullied too.



"Be grateful you weren't charged a tax on each tree planted as landscaping was also a Permit condition," asserts Kia.


Related info/sources:
The 84 page Feb. 26/15 agenda for GVAC, with fire hydrant issue pages 38 - 54 here.
And Coldstream Corner stories here, and here, and here, and here.