Letter  from Paula Tavares-Martin

My husband Joe and I own a piece of land on Tamarisk St adjacent to our orchard .  This piece of land is .60 of an acre, the property has a residence and .42 of an acre we use for ground crop.

Today upon printing and examining  the email I got from the Town of Oliver I was, to say the least outraged.

Without warning the Town of Oliver has slapped us with a bill for $300.30, ($715.00/acre) irrigation for non agricultural use of water.

The way  the Town has handled this matter is very unprofessional, and frustrating. If they were going to slap us with the bill let us know in advance, don’t just throw it at me like “oh by the way we are billing you an extra $300. bucks”, basic common courtesy would have been nice and appreciated.

.42 acre is being used for ground crop, tomatoes, peppers, pickling cukes, zucchini and melons, according to the town of Oliver this is not considered agriculture, if it was, the irrigation rate per acre would have been $500.00 cheaper.

We have two options, tell the town to come and shut the irrigation water valve off, and abandon my crops, or irrigate the crops with domestic water.

Seeing that I probably would not profit $300.30 on my ground crops,  I am left with the option, you guessed it, abandon the crops.

Town of Oliver sent out letters in July trying to explain a change:

“..it became quite clear that residential properties, under a half acre – with both a domestic and irrigation connection were not paying for that irrigation water.”

The former wording of a Water User Fee Bylaw allowed for a bill to go to properties over one  half acre only.

143 properties were in this class. Last fall the council changed the Bylaw removing the wording “greater than 1/2 acre in size”.

No more free water.

The Town admits proper notice should have been given after the Bylaw was changed.

There will be other complaints as many people have large cultured grounds around rural homes with hedges and gardens – they will likely be affected as well.