Wasting Water

[rowyn]

WSJ article on low-flow showers. Includes, among other things, government regulation of showerhead pressure, plus bonus ways of subverting said regulations, and possible new regulations under consideration.

So ... stupid question: if the goal is to get people to stop wasting water, and if most municipalities own the waterworks … why don’t the municipalities raise the cost of water? I mean, I don’t care about my water usage because water is cheap.  If water weren’t cheap, I’d take steps to use less.  Don’t other people think that way too? It worked for gas when gas hit $4 a gallon; people started driving less. Am I missing something in the basic supply/demand equation here?

Comments

[xthread.livejournal.com]

Actually, it's not very difficult to charge variable prices for water based upon who's using it and how much they're using. But it's hard to increase the price of water enough, as someone passes from the 'low water use' category to the 'high water use' category, that user behavior will change (other than to complain to their elected officials - people are extremely good at screaming to their council critters and state representatives when watering their lawns is expensive).

That said, it's extremely easy for heavy industrial users of water to lobby for advantaged prices, on the basis that they're bringing dollars to the economy. (Even if those dollars aren't very efficient, which agriculture often is).