In the past year, there have been 136 water main breaks across Kitchener – more than in any previous 12-month period.
And the problem is only going to get worse, according to a report going to city councillors next week, with a “substantial” increase in repair work necessary to keep Kitchener’s infrastructure reliable.
By 2023, the report says, Kitchener will have a $63-million backlog of work to be done on water mains alone.
The issue isn’t unique to Kitchener, nor is it a new problem.
Kitchener started increasing the amount it spent on infrastructure replacement in 2002 – only to soon find skyrocketing costs again delaying the schedule.
“The costs to do a kilometre of pipe or a kilometre of road have gone up much faster than the rate of inflation,” Mayor Berry Vrbanovic said in an interview.
Vrbanovic says he wants the provincial and federal governments to fund more local infrastructure projects.
On average, fixing a main break costs $15,000.
Since 1997, city officials estimate that $25 million has been spent repairing broken mains.
