Try The Simple Things First
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 04.26.07
When I was a kid my father taught me to trouble-shoot the simple stuff first: like when the TV would not turn on, to look behind to see if it is plugged in. Can't count the number of times that principal has panned out. With water shortages looming could there really be a simple way to encourage conservation by those on public water? A market based way forward? Via Greater Milwaukee Today:- The South Eastern Wisconsin City of Waukesha plans to be the first city in the state to reverse it's current water rate charge structure (as pictured), charging heavy users more than light users. "The [water] commissioners have been discussing the idea for months and Thursday decided on the final numbers. Any residential customer using more than 30,000 gallons in a quarter would be affected by the increasing rates. In the current rate structure, the more water used, the cheaper the rate is." We don't have a link to the officially published rate numbers, nor do we know if the revisions will have the desired effect. These unofficial numbers we saw on a local blog might be indicative: first 30,000 Gal. - $1.69 per thousand; Next 10,000 Gal. - $1.92 per thousand; Over 40,000 Gal. - $2.24 per thousand. The city water management plan lays out more details. Where else is this happening? Does it work as hoped? Image credit: City of Waukesha.
Wonderful idea - it's about time municipalities figure it out. I have often said that each person in the US needs a fuel card - where once we reach some determined number of gallons per month, there is a tiered surcharge...
It's already "happened" in Ann Arbor.
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Great. Anyone else? Lets see if we can compile enough examples to construct a family of rate slope curves. That'll show who's got the guts and who's merely tepid about water conservation.
The Acton Water District in Acton, Massachusetts has a conservation oriented rate structure. Their website is http://www.actonh2o.com
Yeesh, 30,000 gallons in a quarter?!? I get annoyed if my household uses 15,000 gallons in that much time. I've only got two adults and two small children, but we bathe, drink, flush toilets, wash dishes and clothes regularly. I doubt the bricks in the toilet tanks are saving THAT much water...
Any residential customer sucking so much extra water per month should definitely be paying more for the privilege of wasting it!
Perhaps a rebate/credit for people who underuse!
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I agree that would be a nice, added simple step.
One problem all of this suffers from is the fact that water plants are often designed to handle future capacity projections, and so there is always an incentive to up usage rates before capacity is reached so that the design will work in its most optimal mode (the sweet spot will be at about 85% of capacity). Then too, municipal officials, if it is publicly owned, are tempted to view water systems as a revenue source to help pay off the bonds issued for plant construction. To change all this, you have to re-examine both your growth projections and your engineering approach to plant design. Modular components would solve the sweet spot dilemma and the over-estimation of growth issue.
The El Paso Water Utilities (TX) charges you based on a percentage of your average winter water usage. I like this method because high water users are also encouraged to conserve.
When you set a gallon based structure, and a particular business cannot realistically lower its water use to the next bracket, there is no great incentive to do anything.
El Paso has been doing this for a number of years.
San Diego has a similar structure: tiered prices for increasing quantity. The problem is that almost the whole bill is based on "service fees" so that if I use zero water the bill is 65 a month, and if I use 500 gallons a day, the bill is 80 a month. The difference between zero usage and outrageous waste doesn't even noticeable impact the bill! No wonder no one here even realizes they live in a desert.
The problem with charging based upon winter averages in Texas is that I pay the same as my neighbor who waters their lawn for an hour every day during the summer.
Austin charges more for water the more you use. It's a great conservation step. A friend who bought a new house ran up a $300 water bill one month from over watering! He learned real quick.
This also already happens in Canberra, Australia.
I, too, am from Austin, and I am shocked that any city would charge less for higher volumes consumed. I am also shocked that those owning property next to public reservoirs are allowed to pump from them without restriction, but that's another story.
"... I am shocked that any city would charge less for higher volumes consumed."
This is simple economics. Most things you buy, if you buy in higher volume, the per-unit cost is lower. If you make t-shirts for your organization, you'll find they'll charge you much less per-shirt if you order 500, than if you order 20.
What needs to change is how municipalities look at their rating structures. They would need to move away from a simple free-market economic model, and toward a model as outlined above, to encourage conservation and to help stop waste.
I've heard that we're in a bit of a global water crises. I hope improved policies can help avert, and perhaps reverse, this phenomenon.