voiceofsandiego.org: Cafesandiego... No Need for Water Cops

The data is pretty clear that water use is influenced by price. Increase the cost of water, especially in an aggressive way and with tiers, and consumption will fall.

Moreover, from an economic perspective, pricing is an efficient means to influence behavior.

To avoid costs consumers will innovate in countless ways to drive down their consumption. The costs and benefits of various investments will be weighed. No need for water cops, complex regulations, and costly information gathering when utility-maximizing consumers will react to price hikes by reducing demand.

Given that the reluctance of the city of San Diego to move toward such a pricing scheme is, to be blunt, inexplicable. Even in tax-adverse Poway tiered pricing and aggressive outreach has had a predicable effect -- water use has gone down -- especially among those households in North Poway which previously had used far more than most other residential users.

It would be sad if the city of San Diego is relying upon communitarian esprit-de-corps (and a relatively mild summer) to avoid angry protests from those homeowners with the largest lots, the most tropical landscaping and the largest water bills.

Water is a hard issue. There are deep cultural norms that cut against treating this "necessity of life" as akin to other commodities.

It is a subject area where decisions making power is often concentrated in the hands of technical experts with little appreciation (or understanding) for how markets and self-interest can lead to efficient outcomes. But in a world that where water is growing increasingly scarce, it makes little sense to search for policy solutions with one hand (even if it is an invisible one) tied behind our backs.

Erik Bruvold is the president of the National University System Institute for Policy Research. He can be reached at ebruvold@nusystem.com.

A voice of reason, although I think that one should not turn one's back on the "communitarian esprit de corps". This could one day become a source of civic pride.

Posted by QKruse | reply to this comment
October 26, 2009 11:31 am

I wish I could offer a positive outlook on this topic, and when wearing my hopeful hat, I can almost agree with the concept of "communitarian esprit de corps", only not in San Diego. As I was born and mostly raised here, I have learned the bitter lesson that the mostly obtuse governing bodies of this city are, alas, typical politicians who are more interested in furthering their agendas or careers than in serving their constituents. As for the latter group, quel apathique; my most recent theory is that for the most part, the denizens of San Diego either have brain damage from too much sun or there really IS something in the water that they have used to make the kool-aid that has helped them turn off their brains while they talk and text on their cell phones, while driving!

Posted by Susan F. | reply to this comment
October 27, 2009 4:47 am

"The data is pretty clear that water use is influenced by price. Increase the cost of water, especially in an aggressive way and with tiers, and consumption will fall." And, as I posted after Mr. Carson's introduction, the city plans to raise the water rates even as we conserve.

Posted by C. Geyerman | reply to this comment
October 26, 2009 1:00 pm

Erik: I agree that pricing signals should be used, but within the parameters of California law. It would be irresponsible for any city or water district to ignore Prop 218 restrictions. Don't get me wrong, SDCTA also supports a more effective tiered rate structure for single family residential users and in time, a combo water budget-tiered rate structure (recognizing that a new cost of service study will be necessary). I'm also not sure it's fair to cite Poway to strengthen your criticism of the City of SD. It was only in September that Poway switched from the most inefficient flat rate to a tiered rate structure, while SD has had a tiered rate structure for single family residential class for years. The City hasn't been reluctant to implement tiered rates, the debate has been about water budget-tiered rate structures like the one used by IRWD.

Posted by Lani Lutar | reply to this comment
October 26, 2009 1:28 pm

Lani - my poor writing skills got in the way of communicating the point that if POWAY of all places can finally get around to putting in an aggressively tiered water rate system San Diego should as well. While correct that San Diego has 3 tiers for resdiential use their incremental difference is small. According to research done by NUSIPR intern Alex Prarie, the per unit difference in price between teir 1 and teir 3 water in San Diego is less than 22%. Contrast that with a 922% difference between highest and lowest tiers in Irvine and 767% in Austin. The moral? That to send clear signals to consumers you have to make the "bite" of using too much water actually register. San Diego is pretty toothless in this respect.

Posted by Erik Bruvold | reply to this comment
October 27, 2009 9:26 am

The reason the City of San Diego has not moved to really tiered rates is because the mayor's office is concerned about upsetting the biggest water users in the region, including the local biotech industry, which uses immense amounts of water daily. There doesn't seem to be any awareness that tiered rates would give these same customers a good reason to redesign their operations to become more water, energy and cost efficient. Instead there seems to be a philosopy of cushioning them from reality at all costs.

Posted by Watcher | reply to this comment
October 26, 2009 1:42 pm

The previous comments and the author of the article miss the whole point of the plan: The city has an obligation to encourage employment in quality, well-paying jobs. It is doing so by a number of measures, like the ten or twelve people hired to enforce the scheme dreamed up by the water department bureaucrats. Other measures include the "Living Wage" ordinance, which requires, e.g., janitorial contractors to pay their people several dollars per hour more to clean city-occupied buildings than others, the refusal to outsource anything 3 years after the voters gave the green light, the perpetuation of numerous unnecessary layers of management and......well, you get the idea.

Posted by Bill Bradshaw | reply to this comment
October 26, 2009 4:26 pm

In Sept. I sent Mayor Sanders an email on the H2O topic after watching a terrifying program on CSPAN that featured Robert Glennon, author of "Unquenchable", among other books at the CLE International, Arizona Water Law Conference. Mr Glennon gave a cogent and succinct overview of past and upcoming water woes in the United States. Our Mayor was specifically mentioned in Mr. Glennon's talk, and not in a good way. My letter urged the Mayor to "do the right thing" by the residents of San Diego, since he is termed out and has nothing to lose. I'm still waiting....

Posted by Susan F. | reply to this comment
October 27, 2009 6:28 am

No Need for Water Cops

By ERIK BRUVOLD

Published: Monday, October 26, 2009 7:27 AM PDT