Tiered water rates
The city's first proposal for tiered water rates was introduced yesterday, and discussed in the HS and the N&O.
According to Ray Gronberg's report, base prices for both the water and sewer portions of the bill would nearly double, from $2.58 to $5.12/month, and $3.19 to $5.72/month, respectively. Per unit sewer charges are going to remain static, at $3.28 per unit. A unit is 100 cubic feet, or 748 gallons, if you're wondering. We'll return to the sewer billing portion at some point in the future. Since the city doesn't meter sewer use, it assumes that all water used in the house exits view the sewers. As we've learned, though, by banning outdoor watering, a lot of water either gets soaked back into the ground or runs off into the storm sewer system. Expect to see some bitching about this in the future.
The plan for tiered water rates, though, is the big news. And here, the city has opted for a per household baseline, wherein households that use 2 units or less per month are rewarded, while households using 9 units or more are penalized, regardless of the number of people living in the house. There will be five tiers under the proposal, 2 units & under, 3-5 units, 6-8 units, 9-15 units, and over 15 units per month. The average household is expected to fall into the 6-8 unit per month category. From what i can tell, these aren't marginal increases either. That is, if your household uses 6 units per month, you'll pay the higher rate for all 6 of those units. Presumably it's too difficult at this point to program the computers to bill all customers the same for their first 2 units/month, and then bill the overage at the higher rate.
Quite frankly, the proposal doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Tiered rates should be raised on the margin, not the base. And at the highest levels (over 15 units/month) the proposed price is way too low, at only 2.25 times the base price. There are also too many tiers. Three should be adequate to distinguish between water wasters and water savers. A base rate for the first 3 units per month, say. Then a higher rate for the next 7 units. And a much higher rate for anything above that. If we're going to go with the household based rates.
It also shouldn't take too much imagination to find the inequities in a system that charges a single mother with 3 kids using 32 gallons per day per person (which is not a bad target when you're taking care of little ones) more than a single person using 50 gallons per day, or the same as a DINK couple using 60 gallons a day each.
But this is the first run through on this proposal. Presumably some of these kinks will be worked out before implementation. And when the new computer for handling water bills comes on line, perhaps some more fine-tuning will be possible. Including some exemptions for folks who are going to be really impacted by these rates.
According to Ray Gronberg's report, base prices for both the water and sewer portions of the bill would nearly double, from $2.58 to $5.12/month, and $3.19 to $5.72/month, respectively. Per unit sewer charges are going to remain static, at $3.28 per unit. A unit is 100 cubic feet, or 748 gallons, if you're wondering. We'll return to the sewer billing portion at some point in the future. Since the city doesn't meter sewer use, it assumes that all water used in the house exits view the sewers. As we've learned, though, by banning outdoor watering, a lot of water either gets soaked back into the ground or runs off into the storm sewer system. Expect to see some bitching about this in the future.
The plan for tiered water rates, though, is the big news. And here, the city has opted for a per household baseline, wherein households that use 2 units or less per month are rewarded, while households using 9 units or more are penalized, regardless of the number of people living in the house. There will be five tiers under the proposal, 2 units & under, 3-5 units, 6-8 units, 9-15 units, and over 15 units per month. The average household is expected to fall into the 6-8 unit per month category. From what i can tell, these aren't marginal increases either. That is, if your household uses 6 units per month, you'll pay the higher rate for all 6 of those units. Presumably it's too difficult at this point to program the computers to bill all customers the same for their first 2 units/month, and then bill the overage at the higher rate.
Quite frankly, the proposal doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Tiered rates should be raised on the margin, not the base. And at the highest levels (over 15 units/month) the proposed price is way too low, at only 2.25 times the base price. There are also too many tiers. Three should be adequate to distinguish between water wasters and water savers. A base rate for the first 3 units per month, say. Then a higher rate for the next 7 units. And a much higher rate for anything above that. If we're going to go with the household based rates.
It also shouldn't take too much imagination to find the inequities in a system that charges a single mother with 3 kids using 32 gallons per day per person (which is not a bad target when you're taking care of little ones) more than a single person using 50 gallons per day, or the same as a DINK couple using 60 gallons a day each.
But this is the first run through on this proposal. Presumably some of these kinks will be worked out before implementation. And when the new computer for handling water bills comes on line, perhaps some more fine-tuning will be possible. Including some exemptions for folks who are going to be really impacted by these rates.
Labels: drought, local government
Since 1949, Durhamites have slept soundly, secure in the knowledge that, in our town, erection can be depended upon. Now, thanks to the power of the internets, we can spread that security all over the world.
3 Comments:
Reminds me of the time the Raleigh's mayor & council wanted to base garbage pickup fees on household income because everyone knows that "rich people" produce more waste.
This is a perfect example of how governments screw things up when they try to enforce certain behaviors by differential rates.
By
Locomotive Breath, at 9:24 AM
Absolutely. Government should stick to what it does best.
By
Barry, at 10:02 AM
Per person would probably be pretty complicated to enforce. You'd have to file a form with the city when you had a kid, when you got a roommate, when your SO dumped you and moved out, all that. 3 units per month sounded really low, until I remembered that it was per month, not per two-month billing cycle. (As a single guy who eats a lot of cereal and bread and cheese with low flow fixtures all over the house and a water saving washing machine, it was a stretch for me to get down to 2 units/cycle).
Starting the higher count at 4 units/month makes some sense to me --just about any household should be able to get down to that for indoor uses with some basic conservation measures. Unlike you, though, I'd put in another tier, at like 20 units per month, and make it even higher. If you're using 20 units/month, you're doing something ridiculous, and you're probably costing the city substantially because of it.
Lastly, I was so stunned when the Lockies agreed with me on tiered water rates, I'm glad Ol' Standby is here to make the (dumb) case for commodity pricing, even when the resource in question actually costs more at different quantities.
By
Unknown, at 2:25 PM
Post a Comment
<< Home