Wholesale water rates in our region went up 2 percent at the start of this year.

It's part of a series of increases that the Public Utilities Board approved back in the fall of 2013.

Under that approval, rates jumped 10 percent in 2014, 3 percent in 2015 and levelled off at about 2 percent in  2016, 2017 and 2018.

Pembina Valley Water Co-op general manager Greg Archibald says now that they are at the end of that five-year schedule, the utility will need to go back to PUB for further increases for the next five years.

"What we're doing between now and the end of the year is putting a plan together for spending on both capital and maintenance for the next five years to understand what our needs would be. We're required to recover the cost of our operations from our fees since we have no other source of revenue, so we'll put that all together and put that plan in front of the Public Utilities Board."

The Water Co-op is a not-for-profit entity and their objective is to keep water rates and rate increases as low as possible, according to Archibald.

"The 2 percent that we pass along to our customers, our member municipalities, went into effect on January 1. It is up to the municipalities as to whether they want to pass that increase along to their ratepayers. That's their decision."

Over the past five years, most municipalities in the co-op have passed those increases on to local residents.