Money Changes Everything?

(Originally posted on waterefficiency.net)

By Elizabeth Cutright
Editor
Water Efficiency

At the AWWA’s training seminar Water Demand and Conservation Management: Planning, Policy, and Rates in April of 2007, participants were encouraged to speak up about the issues and problems they faced. I will never forget the frustrations described by the water utility manager of an affluent New England community. He told us all about his utilities’ many failures: the pleas for conservation that fell on deaf ears, the tiered-rate schemes that did nothing to diminish demand. He blamed his lack of success – in part – on the wealth of his customers; a majority of which were ready, willing, and able to use as much water as they needed and pay whatever price charged just to keep their lawns green.
Recently, my local online newspaper reported on a similar issue. According to Rob Kuznia, Noozhawk Staff Writer, two of Santa Barbara County’s high-end communities – Hope Ranch and Montecito – hit record water usage amounts for 2007.(Click Here to read more.) County officials expect demand to continue to increase through 2008, just in time for reductions in water supplied to them by California’s State Water project.
Increasing demand and decreasing supply obviously puts both water districts in a tight spot, and it was their customers who put them there. In the 1990s, residents of neighbouring Santa Barbara, Goleta, and Carpinteria all voted to reject the State Water project in favour of living within their means from a water resources standpoint. Voters in the Hope Ranch (serviced by the La Cumbre water district) and Montecito took a different tack, choosing instead to join the State Water Project in the hopes of tapping an unlimited water supply. This decision may have eased worries in the short term, but undoubtedly it led to the situation both districts are now facing: the illusion of unlimited water goading demand and codifying usage that would be considered extraordinary in any other context.
In fact, while the city of Santa Barbara receives most of its water from the local reservoirs and aquifers, the Montecito district receives about 22% of its water from the state water project. La Cumbre is even worse off, with 60% of its water coming from the State.
What I find most shocking is that, so far, neither district is using a tiered-rate system. As a result, the big water users pay flat rates (some of the cheapest in the country) and waste with impunity – with a majority of their water going to landscaping. It’s also important to note that both districts use two to three times the amount of water consumed by the rest of Santa Barbara County’s residents, yet they pay bargain basement prices to keep their lawns green while yards across the country wither and die (many to be reborn through smart irrigation and xeriscaping…but that’s a story for another time).
Apparently, both districts are considering adopting a tiered-rate system similar to the one employed by the city of Santa Barbara – in which case customers will pay for their water use based on a scale that raises the price per unit once higher-usage threshold has been hit. It’s your basic, the more you use the more you pay, scheme, that will – hopefully – catch the attention of the folks writing the checks. In light of how much water is being used by these communities, there’s no doubt a tiered-rate scheme will help raise revenue for the La Cumbre and Montecito water districts. But one has to wonder; when money is no object will high rates do enough to encourage conservation?