Edmonton utilities company drops part of opt-out fee after pressure from advocates for Palestinians

Edmonton utilities company Epcor has dropped part of a fee charged to customers who opt out of the installation of new water meter reading devices.

Some customers and advocates for Palestinians had expressed concern over the device's ties to an Israeli company criticized for water extraction and exploitation in the West Bank and Gaza.

In 2023, Epcor started installing water meter reading devices — also called Advanced Metering Infrastructure — on water meters in Edmonton. 

The devices provide improved monthly billing and timely water data to help customers make decisions about their water use.  

To date, Epcor, a City of Edmonton-owned utility, has installed about 150,000 AMI devices on water meters in Edmonton. An Epcor spokesperson said about 300 customers "opted out for various reasons" but would not specify what those reasons were.

Some customers told CBC their concerns are rooted in a movement known as Boycott, Divest and Sanctions, which seeks to put financial pressure on Israel and Israeli companies to end what some aid groups have said are human rights abuses against Palestinians.

Epcor said its new water reading devices are supplied by Landis+Gyr, which contracts with a company called Master Meter. 

Master Meter's parent company is the Israel-based Arad Group, an international water metering company with business that includes supplying equipment for Mekorot, Israel's national water company.  

Edmontonian Fatima Saleh said there has been a significant lack of information about the devices provided publicly by Epcor to its customers. She is a spokesperson for a local group that calls itself Epcor Delivers Genocide.  

"People of conscience are asking where these meters are coming from," Saleh said.

As a Palestinian, Saleh said she feels it's vital to call out Epcor's business ties with a subsidiary of Arad. "It's about the fact that our families are still being violently displaced and dispossessed for these corporations to exist on our traditional homelands in Palestine," she said.

For Epcor customers, non-standard meters have been available as an alternative for those who decline the new water meter devices for any reason.

But those meters originally came with a $200 installation fee and a $50 monthly fee. 

The $200 installation fee was dropped in the fall, but customers who choose to opt out of the Master Meter will still be charged a monthly non-standard meter reading fee that amounts to $300 annually, or $25 per month, starting on Sept. 1, 2025.