...Says Harvard Professor Stavins at the Huffington Post. His op/ed continues:
Throughout the United States, water is under-priced. Efficient use of water will take place only when the price reflects the actual additional cost of making that water available. Lest one fear that higher water rates would mean that Americans would go thirsty, take note: On average, each of us uses 183 gallons of water a day for drinking, cooking, washing, flushing, cleaning, and watering, but less than 5% of that is for drinking and cooking combined. There is plenty of margin for change if people are given the right price signals.He goes on to give his version of my "some water for free, pay for more..."
Fifty years of economic analyses have demonstrated that water demand is responsive to price changes, both in the short term, as individuals and firms respond by making do with less, and in the long term, as they adopt more efficient devices in the home and workplace.
Note: The story was picked up by DWR's clippers, which is funny, because they told ME that my forbes.com piece was too op/ed for them. Was it the message or the messenger? Perhaps the message, since I advocated higher water prices LAST July... OTOH, I am not a Harvard professor. So much for "the truth will set you free!"
Bottom Line: Now that we are all on the same page, can we get some conservation pricing? Everyone gets some cheap water but then pays a LOT if they want more.
thanks to TS for pushing me to post on this
1 comments:
It Should Be Everybody’s Responsibility to Saving water. I guess it is because water is so cheap, maybe prices do have to rise for people to save? I just do not understand why people do not think it is important to save. I do know the movement is growing I just hope it is not too late. We really do not need to change major things to save. We can save water painlessly by buying product that help us save water and cut back on the silly things like letting the water run as we brush our teeth.
For the big changes, we need to have a 3rd party monitor the cities and the water waste. They tell us we need to save water yet we pump millions of gallons out to sea everyday, let’s convert it into Grey-Water for outdoor cleaning and watering. Low volume shower heads, Dual flush conversion kits for the toilet should be handed out by the utility departments like we get or garbage cans.
SelectAFlush has offered to give $5.00 off to California residence as a way to help save water during the time Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has it under a water crisis emergency. The coupon code is “California Water” .
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