Why is Scarsdale Encouraging Excess Water Use?

Hello, I am Brice Kirkendall-Rodriguez of Fox Meadow Road

For those of you who only know me for advocacy of fair property assessments in Scarsdale, let me introduce you to an aspect of my life with more history.

• I participated in my first Earth Day as a Boy Scout in 1975.
• On my way to the rank of Eagle Scout I participated in numerous trail reclamation projects including both the Leatherstocking trail and Carpenter Pond in New Rochelle.
• After college I worked with the Clean Water Action Project raising money and educating communities in the Boston area about threats to its Quabbin Reservoir and Boston Harbor contamination.
• In the late 80s as the Promotion Director of a Radio Station there, I may very well have launched the first ever radio station event designed to draw listener attention to waste recycling by burying our morning host for two days under a massive mound of recyclable waste contributed by our listeners.
• In the early 90s in Santa Barbara I coined the phrase "Every Day is Earth Day" to brand our radio station's daily messages to raise awareness on environmental issues. Our efforts even inspired the band Dramarama to re-record a song about it.

In short, environmentalism has been one of my life long passions.

I don’t say all of this to be sanctimonious; far from it. I know there are life choices I make that increase my carbon footprint, and I am selective with how I try to reconcile my interest in being environmentally sensitive with my desire to live a comfortable life. We all make these choices, and it would therefore be disingenuous to pass judgement on the choices of others.

However, I do think it is important for public policy to nudge us toward the right decisions and to incrementally make poor decisions less attractive. It’s a policy of "Sensible Sustainability". Thus, I was quite dismayed to discover that our most recent water rate changes make it less expensive to consume excessive amounts of water. U.S. households are already among the world's most excessive residential consumers of water. The typical family of four in the United States consumes about 400 gallons of water per day. This is about 50 units on our water bills.

This year's water rate increase of over 12% for the first 50 units of water used and rate decrease of more than 3% for units of water above the first 50, has effectively raised the price for those that conserve water and rewarded the most excessive consumers of water with a rate reduction. Yes, Scarsdale water consumers who consume between 50 and 97 units will still pay more because of the base rate increase. The troubling part is that those typically consuming more than 100 units a period won’t pay any increase for their use and will actually enjoy a price reduction relative to last year. In some cases, this savings will amount to hundreds of dollars.

To be clear, I am not objecting to the main purpose of the base rate increase which is to fund important capital projects to assure reliable distribution of clean drinking water. This should be part of the base rate and we should all share in this burden. However, by reducing the excess rate there is an added shift of cost burden from those that use the most water to the ones who use the least.

As the person who stood on this podium almost two years ago and introduced you to the findings of vertical inequity in our last property reval, the irony is not lost on me. It's as if we had brought back J.F. Ryan to set our new water rates.

Dumbfounded, I wrote each of you about my concerns. Manager Pappalardo, thank you for taking the time to reply. Your explanation was that the new rates reflected rate changes from the City of New York and this matches the reply Mayor Hochvert has sent other residents that expressed the same concern. However, it seemed odd to me that the current mayor of New York, a self-proclaimed progressive would allow a water rate change that might encourage increased water consumption. So, I continued to research the matter. I have now talked to water boards in multiple jurisdictions, poured through consumption reports and have read the actual statutes that govern rate setting by the City of New York.

It turns out that New York City provides water to communities like Scarsdale at a sharp discount to what is paid by City residents. In fact, far less than half of the amount of our water bills are for the wholesale cost of the water we receive from the New York City water system. The base discount charged by New York continues until our total consumption matches the New York City per capita average for our population size. Only then, does New York City start imposing and excess charge to us that is actually the same $3.81 basic unit charge that New York rate payers are charged from their first gallon. Interestingly, the New York Water Board is legally prohibited from charging more than this basic unit rate as an excess usage charge to other communities. So yes, in a manner of speaking New York City's rate charges to other communities are progressive, but that is as much an accident of how the statute is written, rather than a pricing tool to manage consumption.

In fact, the legal prohibition limiting the top rate New York City can charge us has worked against the city and conservation efforts. According to reports available from the New York City Water Board, conservation efforts in the city have been more successful than in the suburbs, and as a result, the per household use of water in the city has declined faster. Meanwhile, the share of suburban use of the New York City water system has increased by about 30% since the 1990s. However, if the city wants to increase the excess rate it charges to encourage more conservation, it must also penalize its own local rate payers, since the excess rate can’t exceed the local meter rate. Thus, the city has opted instead to increase the base rate so that the total cost of water to suburban users rises, while not punishing New York City residents. For example, New York City raised the base wholesale rate by 5% in 2015 and again by 10% in 2016, while increasing the consumer meter rates for New York City customers (what we pay as our wholesale excess rate) by only 3% for each of those two years.

Should Scarsdale interpret the faster increase of the base rate as a license to lower our excess rates? I really hope that is not our interpretation because it was certainly not the city's intent. So, is this what happened in 2018? Did New York City once again increase its base rate by a higher percentage than the wholesale excess rate, and we chose to interpret this as a blessing to discount excess users of water? The written replies from both the Mayor and Village Manager would have you believe that this is the case. However, as uncomfortable as I find it to say this, it is simply not true. New York City has actually not raised its water rates in the last three years.

What would possess the Village to blame New York City for a water rate change that is entirely of its own discretion? The only explanation that I am able to conceive is that Scarsdale Village uncomfortably knew this would look bad, but wanted to offer some kind of relief to residents that were particularly vocal last fall when they saw high bills for their summer water usage. I am not unsympathetic. Two years ago my family returned from a summer vacation to discover that we had an exterior water leak that ended up costing us $600 in excess water charges. It’s painful. However, not all excessive water use is accidental. Much of it is by choice to enjoy green lawns and in-ground swimming pools.

Don’t let our currently near capacity reservoirs fool you. Climate change will bring increased episodes of drought. Communities accustomed to free-flowing water will have to find ways to treat it more like the precious resource it is. I don't think we want Scarsdale to be ostracized, the way Beverly Hills was during the recent California drought. As a community we need to own the fact that we may recycle our food scraps, but we are probably among the heaviest per capita consumers of water in the region.

There are solutions both to our heavy water use and to the high cost incurred by some:

• First, let's fix our outdated rate structure. Most of the communities that neighbor us have moved to a multi-tier pricing scheme. Our 2017 top rate is actually almost identical to the Village of Mamaroneck and the City of Rye. However, they do not impose that rate until a much higher level of usage. We probably need to consider an intermediate rate.
• Second, let's expand our guidance on how to conserve water. Suggestions to patch leaks and use low flow shower heads won't help the consumer that uses water for irrigation or a swimming pool. The Israelis have become famous for their use of drip irrigation, and this has application even here. Grey water systems are becoming commonplace in water-starved areas such as Arizona. There are also techniques to capture rainwater. These and other ideas should be explored and encouraged.
• Finally, we have an option not available to most dry climates. Because we effectively import most of our drinking water from more distant watersheds, our immediate groundwater resources are not under the same strain that might be true in Putnam or Duchess Counties. For the homeowner that wants to continue using significant amounts of water without having to pay rising excess rates, a water well may be a viable option for irrigation and even pool use. It may even be in the interest of the village to streamline the permitting process to encourage this option since opening up even just 100 wells might have the effect of reducing our total consumption from the City water system by the equivalent of 2,000 average households.

In the meantime, I beg you not to inadvertently create a moral hazard by reducing the excess rate for water usage in this budget. Please make the slight adjustment necessary to bring it even with the 2017 cost until we have the opportunity to explore and implement a modern plan for better conservation of our precious water resources.

Thank you for your time, attention, and service.