Water party is over

By: North County Times Opinion staff | Saturday, February 23, 2008 7:57 PM PST ∞

Our view: Grand jury issues report that shouldn't be ignored

Reports from the county grand jury don't usually get much attention. A recent one should be the exception.

Earlier this month the grand jury released a report on San Diego's water future. While we've heard a lot in the last year about water problems, it typically involves pleas by water authorities for people to conserve water.

Such pleas are doomed to fail because they rely on the good intentions of consumers rather than decisions and behavior guided by self-interest. In the case of water use, self-interest means minimizing water bills.

The grand jury's "Water Conservation: Sober Up, San Diego, the Water Party Is Over" veers away; it tackles how those bills are structured. The report addresses the issue of water rates and the idea of expanding the tiered water-rate structure.

According to the report, single-family homes in the city of San Diego are charged according to a three-tiered rate structure.

As families use more water, they get bumped into a new tier and are charged more. Water districts throughout the county use a similar pricing system.

This system falls apart, however, when it comes to multiple-family residences and commercial and industrial users. Both categories pay a flat rate no matter how much water they use. This, too, is how it works in many of the county's other water districts.

Extending tiered-rates to commercial and industrial would be a controversial change, but it is one that deserves further study and consideration.

The grand jury deserves credit for not only raising the issue of flat water rates but giving it priority over conservation programs and unrealistic attempts to stop new growth.

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3 comment(s)[-]Go to Top

Terrific! wrote on Feb 24, 2008 8:41 AM:A terrific editorial. Short and to the point. ALL water users should be charged based on their volume and no flat rates should be allowed. The tiered system incentivizes the user to maximize their conservation of this very precious resource!

Skip wrote on Feb 24, 2008 9:52 AM:So if I get this right, if you have a single family house in Escondido and ten families are living in it, then they will pay a higher tiered rate based on useage. That sounds OK to me as in my city the planning commisioners say that the multiple family single family homes are destroying the city's planning.

Deb wrote on Feb 25, 2008 12:55 PM:Last time asked to conserve water, we did. Dirty home windows, brown lawns. dirty cars. Our reward for sacrifices - a construction boom to bring in more people for services they say we don't have enough of to support our population already. City planners are ignorant.

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