Recently, the City of Ann Arbor looked into a graduated pricing policy for
the city water utility: the more you use, the more you pay per unit.  The
benefits of this policy were presented as an incentive for households to
reduce water usage, which is both environmentally desirable and would put
less demand on the City's water and sewage treatment facilities.  The
idea was abandoned in the face of objections that the policy punished large
families (or, really, anybody with children at all).

Is a progressive utility pricing scheme desirable?
What would a "fair" progressive utility pricing plan involve?

17 responses total.

Hey. I am all about progressive utility pricing for things like water. 
However, I cant think of a really fair way to do it. I mean, if you do 
it by household, then it isnt fair to large families. If you do it by 
person, it gets way too complicated. 

Maybe the thing to do is to just raise the price of water across the 
board in the summer time when demand is greatest. Maybe with special 
assistance made to low income people where they get the first X gallons 
free based on the size of their households. Water is a commodity like 
anything else. If it isnt priced correctly, shortages occur. 

It would be useful to explore the idea of more than two types of water.  Right
now we have essentially "white" 

water (processed at the inlet processing plant, and coming out of the tap
at the sink) and "black"  water (used, combined with sewage, running back
to the outlet processing plant) 

The concept of "gray" water (used, but not combined with sewage: for
example bath/shower drainage)  or "gray water" (processed at the inlet
processing plant, but not potable) might be worth exploring.  Then we
would not have to process all the summer water for watering lawns and
gardens to the same antiseptic level that we process the water we drink.

re #2: It would cost a whole lot of money to replace the current one-pipe-in
one-pipe-out system with one that carried a greater number of types of
water.  Would it be reasonable to assume that all greywater reclamation/use
would have to be done at the building level?

I've heard of greywater systems that are as simple as rainwater collection
to a cistern or as complex as planting sod on your roof(!) and pumping your
household water to the roofline and letting the sod filter it.  Do you know
what varieties of greywater system are possible under current local laws?

High water prices would motivate people to reclaim their grey water. 

Assuming it were legal for them to do so, yes.  It would also, more easily,
motivate them to conserve water in the first place.  I'd like to see a water
pricing scheme that charged more for the water than it cost to acquire/treat
it, and then used 100% of the surplus to subsidize water-saving equipment
(either use reduction or reclamation) directly, fund research into
water-saving measures, or pay for an inspector's time to go around and approve
greywater systems.

For as long as I've been paying it, the water bill has had two components:
water and sewage.

When I lived within the city limits, the sewage component was based
on the metered water usage.  During the summer, the sewage component
was cut by some factor, limited to the amount used during the winter.
The idea was that water used to wash a car or water a lawn did not go to
the waste-treatment plant, even though it did pass through the meter.

Out here in the township, the sewage component is based on the water
meter reading, with no reduction for watering the lawn.  If I want such
a reduction, I have to install a separate meter for the outside faucets.

NB: I want potable water in my shower, and I want my bath water sent
through the waste-treatment plant.  Right now, we are all old enough
(and young enough) not to drink the bathwater, nor to foul it.  It's not
like that in every household, though.

We live on two adjacent platted lots, only one of which counts for the
house. But we get two water bills, and the one for the "vacant" lot if
a lot smaller, but still finite, even though it uses neither water
or sewage service. 

Rane, I assume there's some base "service" charge for the vacant lot, but no
per-unit based charge?  Even still, seems weird to charge a service fee for
a hookup that doesn't exist.  Is the charge on the vacant lot equal to the
constant service charge on the in-use lot?

The bill for the vacant lot is for "storm water". There are, as expected,
no "water" or "sewer" charges for the vacant lot. 

Both lots are 68x135 ft, but the "storm water" charge is $12.76 for the
lot with the house and $15 for the vacant lot (3-month charges). I don't
know why they are different. The house does have a footing drain, so some
stormwater goes to the sanitary sewer, so maybe the storm water runoff is
allocated partly to sewage. You have raised my curiosity on how this is
calculated. 

Hmmm.  Raised my own, too.  I would think storm water costs would be higher
for the built-on lot.  The footprint of your house and your driveway (if any)
are square footage on the built lot that storm water can't seep into the
ground on.  I'd charge more for the lot with the house becauce I would expect
more runoff.

You should ask them if you can build a retention pond in the spare lot instead
of paying the storm water costs. :)

We have thought of adding a fish and frog pond...

Yes, water runoff to storm drains is greater on the developed lot (per
unit area), due to greater groundwater recharge and evapotranspiration on
the vacant lot. 

(note to self: when taking over local government, include storm water rate
reductions in incentives for rainwater collection methods.  See?  We're still
on topic!)

So, I've figured out how storm water rates are set, though I can't figure out
how they're getting your spare lot rate.  And, actually, rates just went up.
(July 23, 2003)

1- and 2-family dwellings are charged a flat rate of $16.50 (was $15) per
dwelling unit, or $14.04 (was $12.76) per unit if "adequate stormwater
retention" is provided.  So there's the rate for your house.

Other properties are charged $176.80 per acre times a modifier equal to 0.2
for pervious area, 0.95 for impervious area, and 0.3 for impervious area with
adequate retention.  Your 68x135 foot lot is .2107 acres; at the pervious
rate, this would run $7.45 quarterly.  This non-residential calcualtion wasn't
changed.  The closest I can get this to $15 is to say that they're charging
you retention on both lots of land in one charge, and on the house in the
other charge.

I'd be much happier with a formula that just looked down at the lot from above
and calculated based on pervious/impervious area without caring what the
building was.

It looks like they are charging the dwelling rate for the vacant lot, and
the "adequate stormwater retention" rate for the house lot, which is
backwards from what you give. Since this is much larger than the calculation
based on acreage, there must be a minimum for the acreage calculation.
Maybe I should inquire - though that might set off some other rules that
would raise our total....

Ain't that the way of it, Rane? :/

On a typical street, the vacant lot has to carry the cost of running the
pipes past it.  Most Ann Arbor houses include an emergency overflow basin
for the sewer system - commonly called a "basement".

Given the overhead of crediting allowing for family size, etc., in water
rates, i'd just jack up the flat rate.  More water doesn't "grow" in the
river or City wells just 'cause people need or want it.  If you want to
be family-friendly, put some of the extra $ collected into reduced-cost
school lunches (where you're already bearing the burden of rules and
paper costs anyway).

They may be including the asphalted-over right-of-way on your property called
a road in any of the calculations.  

Response not possible - You must register and login before posting.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss