Consultant says high-use customers should pay

City Utilities' newest water rate proposal a flat 7 percent across-the-board raise in rates might be considered by some to be a discriminatory rate practice. "Your first approach (a proposal targeting those who use more water) is by far the best."

That's what Mark Crisp, senior project manager for GDS Associates Inc., told the CU board studying the 2002 budget Aug. 7.

Crisp, an engineer and special consultant from Atlanta, advised the board that its original intent, to send a pricing signal to high-water-use customers by charging them more from June to September, was an effective technique to encourage conservation.

He cited "huge growth" in the use of irrigation systems nationwide.

"I applaud CU for the new paradigm" in its pricing technique that singles out the 10,000 high-use summertime customers to pay the cost of their water use," Cris said.

"CU is proactive to create a signal to consumers that they need to be responsible for what (they) do to the (water) system."

He added that if consumers "are willing to pay for the commodity, it should be available." But, Crisp suggested, the water users also should be more ecologically responsible and more conservation-minded.

Los Angeles, for all its energy woes these days, still uses 20 percent less water than it did in the early 70s because consumers conserve that's 20 percent less despite a huge population expansion, Crisp said. LA was forced into learning conservation techniques because of years of drought and loss of water supply, he said.

Crisp said it will take a "cultural shift" to change consumers' minds on water use, but "if you don't start somewhere you won't start at all." He added that "conservation pricing is the place to start."

Shelia Wright, the only council member at the budget study session, suggested to Crisp that the city do what Abilene, Texas, does let owners of houses with odd numbers and even numbers alternate days for watering.

Crisp laughed and said that was a good way for a utility to increase its revenues, because what happens is the customers overwater when it's their turn. He said human nature is such that if a person is restricted to watering by law, he will use all the water he wants and more when it's his turn.

He said the better way to conserve water was to "allocate the costs appropriately" and to educate the public about the need to conserve. But, he added, "the process of community change takes time."

No one wants city beautification projects to stop, Crisp said.

Landscapers should use plants that are native as well as plants that "aren't water hungry. In the southeast, we have grasses growing there that don't deserve to be there" because they demand water. Plants like rhododendrons, for instance, although they can be grown here, require huge amounts of water in order to flower.

Consumers also "over-irrigate," Crisp said, when they "flood irrigate" with sprinklers.

He said consumers "have to get out of the mindset that there's plenty of water out there."