Mismanagement at the Water Districts

Edison and the Gas Company have a tiered pricing schedule which gives the lowest rates to life-line usage. 

One Water District here in the Southwest County charges $8.30 per unit of water when you use 10 units of water.  If this same customer were to use 30 units of water, the charge would be $4.00 per unit.

Including sewer charges, the rates climb to $12.17 and $4.06 for the 10 & 30 unit bills.

Volume discounts such as these are unforgivable in the current drought conditions.

Why the disparity?  Water Districts have a wide range of fixed charges including service charges, property taxes and sewer charges.  All of these charges are unrelated to water usage.

Most of the Country charges sewer rates based on water usage, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, at least one District in the Palm Springs area and even on the East Coast where there is no drought.

Service charges were originally intended to cover the cost of reading your meter and preparing and mailing your bill.  Service charges in the Southwest County range from $10.62 to $35.45 per month.  With the age of automation, I find it hard to believe that even the $10.62 charge is justifiable.  Keeping service charges, property taxes and sewer bills high allows the Districts to charge less for each unit of water.  Keeping the per unit price of water low effectively gives discounts to the big users and the wasters.

We can all save water.  Those who use the most water can also save the most.  By giving volume discounts, the large users have little financial incentive to save water.  This in turn gives private enterprise few financial incentives to invent solutions.

In addition to changing the pricing, Water Districts should consolidate sewage plants.  This will increase the availability of recycled water and also reduce the costs.  Aggressive pricing of recycled water with long term commitments would encourage businesses to make significant financial investments to convert to recycled water. 

Governor Brown’s proposal has good points, however, the monies he has proposed to spend will take many years before the water supply problem would be improved.  It becomes obvious then that conservation is the short term fix.

Governor Brown’s proposal also included rate subsidies.  This would indicate that rate increases will be the State’s method of forcing conservation.

When are we going to see some real reform?