ARICHAT - Richmond County's municipal councillors have given first-reading approval to a four-point overhaul of the county's sewage-treatment by-laws that would, among other things, see four municipal sewer systems grouped under a single Richmond Sewer Utility. 

If approved at the second-reading stage following a public hearing to be held in the Richmond Municipal Building, the changes to By-Law #52 would see the sewer systems serving Arichat, Petit de Grat, Louisdale and Evanston brought together, resulting in a single sewer rate for all customers served by municipal infrastructure in these communities. 

With all four of these communities already served by the Richmond Water Utility, county warden Amanda Mombourquette suggested that a similar combination of these communities' sewage systems makes sense, especially as the county attempts to address aging sewage infrastructure in Louisdale, Arichat and Petit de Grat. 

"I think the benefits of this will be short-term and long-term, in terms of normalizing sewer rates across the county, but also planning for the future and for capital expenditures, which are absolutely going to have to happen within the next number of years," Warden Mombourquette told reporters following the February 26 regular council meeting in Arichat. 

Other proposed changes to By-Law #52 include:

* Changing the billing for sewer services so that sewer billings are based on real-time water billings rather than being calculated based on the prior year's water billings

* Making provisions for metered sewer connections for institutional, commercial or industrial customers with water consumption that varies greatly from sewer discharge volumes

* Providing for a mechanism to adjust a sewer bill in certain instances where a customer's water consumption is unusually high due to a water leak or other unusual activity.