I spoke to a small group at a salon in San Francisco last week. Here's a 14MB MP3 of our one-hour, twenty minute discussion. (My voice was raspy because I was out yelling "raise prices!" all day :)
In the talk, I discussed some for free, pay for more; the benefits of markets for water; urban landscaping and rainwater cachements; and how citizens need to learn more about water practices and management.
After my talk, one participant sent this letter to SFPUC's General Manager:
Dear Mr. Harrington,I think it's a GREAT letter. I sure hope that Harrington responds (and acts!)
I am writing this brief letter to urge SFPUC to consider a more "aguanomics"-based approach to achieving greater conservation by your district's household consumers.
SFPUC's announcement of rate hikes to begin in July 2009 are so modest as to make me think that no amoung of profligate use will go punished. Please consider the following, submitted as Comment to the Chronicle's March 5 article, "On Coping With the Drought":
"For every conscientous consumer, operating on personal principles and/or economic concerns, there are others who don't practice household water conservation, because they both don't hold such principles and can easily afford the currently trivial cost difference for profligate use (SFPUC proposed a mere 30-cent hike per 748 gal for mid-2009). Let's support more aggressive bloc rate pricing once consumers exceed a comfortable baseline use limit. This is way more effective than relying on the "let's care about conserving" (i.e. principles-based) message. Across-the-board district mandates to cut use by some X%, while not useless, actually spread the pain UNequally--they further squeeze conscientious users who have already trimmed water use of their own volition, while failing to optimize on reduction potentials of their profligate counterparts. Read up on "aguanomics"; economic pressure changes consumer behavior for water use, just as for other things."
Thank you for reading this. We all appreciate SFPUC's ongoing efforts towards water conservation.
Bottom Line: The best way to get better water policies is to engage your local water manager. Let the citizenship begin!
1 comments:
Yay David! And the letter shows that at least one person acted, so the rest were listening! Getting that person to write that letter shows you are engaging your audience and making them want to act! I don't understand the resistance to bloc tiered pricing. All the purveyors and water districts up here like the idea, except the rich developers who would rather put the kibosh on anything "sustainable" in favor of them making a pot of cash. When does the "new normal" start where sustainability and conservation trump profits? Without a healthy environment and water, the economy is irrelevant. California actually has far more urgency to raise prices for larger users, so there's something fishy in the water managers camp, and it's not smelt. Your sane voice needs to be a broken record--messaging over and over, but your message is right on, just turn up the volume!
Post a Comment