Conserving Water Comes At A Price

This is an interesting article from 11alive.com. The local daily paper would never print something like this, mainly because they mention the county is losing money.

Save Water, Lose Revenue
By Marc Pickard

They asked us to help -- to do the right thing, and so we did. In the face of an historic drought, Metro Atlantans cut back on water usage by tens of millions of gallons a day.

Who could have anticipated that water conservation has filled the reservoirs with red ink?

Compared to last year, things for the Douglasville/ Douglas County Water and Sewer Authority are looking flush.

"Looking at water flow coming into our reservoir, it is up over last year, and has been increasing since the first of the year," said executive director of the Douglasville/ Douglas County Water and Sewer Authority Pete Frost.

Water conservation in Douglasville/ Douglas County has reduced usage by several million gallons a day.

As recently as last September, the Douglasville/ Douglas County Reservoir at the Dog River was 40 percent of capacity. Today, it is full. So, Douglasville/ Douglas County's water supply is in good shape. The problem is, its bank account is not. And it is not alone.

"We've done such a great job of conserving that revenues are down," said Jack Dozier, executive director of the Georgia Association of Water Professionals. "Local governments are actually suffering on because they haven't been able to sell as much water as projected."

Douglasville/Douglas County was losing $1.1 million in expected revenue a month.

"You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that hif you can't sell the product, but you still have fixed expenses only, the only thing that you can do is look at some sort of revenue generation."

Call it a conservation penalty, or a rate increase, or a usage surcharge -- everyone's water bills are going up.

"It has been an under priced commodity, and I think you're seeing really a market adjustment to where the price ought to be," said Frost. "And I think that that when the price is where it needs to be, we'll see conservation because of price."

Pete Frost says he expects water rates to reach their appropriate level in about three years.

The summer outlook for Metro water authorities is dry. And the weather forecast isn't great either.