Editorial: Water use requires clearer pricing structure

It's OK to use more water, but conserving water also makes sense. That's the confusing message being sent to area customers by their public water utilities.

Due in large part to the fact their customers have adhered to state Environmental Protection Division restrictions on outdoor water use, as well as other local restrictions - and, in the case of Athens-Clarke County, a pricing structure aimed at encouraging conservation - local public water utilities find themselves worrying about declining revenue from water sales.

In Oconee County, sales have dropped by more than 40 percent, according to a Saturday story in this newspaper. That decline has prompted the county's utility department to institute a hiring freeze for five positions, cut spending on fuel, delay maintenance projects and raise rates for the county's biggest water users.

In Athens-Clarke County, where more than $200 million in bonds were sold last year for water and sewer infrastructure improvement projects, cutbacks and rate hikes are a possibility in the face of declining revenue, the county's utilities director said in Saturday's story.

In Barrow County, water system revenues are being adversely affected by the decline in home construction. Last year, 600 new homes were tied into the county's water system, each bringing $1,350 in tie-in charges to the system. Thus far this year, just 22 new homes have tied into the water system.

Yet, somewhat incredibly, the water utility directors in both Athens-Clarke and Barrow count themselves among the people who support continued restrictions on water use, according to Saturday's story, even as heavy rains have replenished local water supplies.

That support exists even as the Upper Oconee Basin Water Authority - officials from Athens-Clarke, Barrow, Oconee and Jackson counties who oversee the jointly developed Bear Creek Reservoir - are considering asking the Environmental Protection Division to let residential customers hand-water or use drip irrigation on their lawns and gardens for two or three days a week, up from the one day per week now allowed.

In addition, according to Saturday's story, basin authority members are considering whether to allow people to wash their own cars, and whether to allow power-washing of structures.

All of this proposed easing of the water-use restrictions currently in place is occasioned by recent heavy rains that have filled the North Oconee and Middle Oconee rivers and Bear Creek Reservoir. Given that circumstance, easing restrictions makes some sense, but such talk also carries the possibility of arbitrary water-use policies.

By way of example, Athens-Clarke Mayor Heidi Davison said for Saturday's story that she'd support easing water-use restrictions to allow power-washing, but not car-washing. The mayor argued that people could take their cars to local car washes, some of which recycle their water, thereby supporting a local business.

Which, of course, raises the immediate question of why someone who makes a living power-washing homes, where much of the water used flows into the ground or drainage systems and thus is also recycled, shouldn't get the same consideration.

If nothing else, the contradictions and arbitrariness inherent in current water pricing and use schemes should signal local officials they're working with an untenable fiscal model.

Utilities officials and elected officials ought to consider a pricing model based on availability of water. Water could be had cheaply when flows and storage of local water resources are high. When flows and storage are low, water would come at a higher price. In times of scarcity, water customers would automatically make the conservation decisions now being forced on them, but revenues would remain relatively steady.

Certainly, there might be some problems. For instance, some customers might be willing and able to pay high prices, even in times of dire scarcity, for trivial uses such as lawn-watering. There then might be some justification for some official action to proscribe certain water uses to ensure that all customers have access to at least a basic supply, but such proscription would be far more defensible than current schemes to set prices and usage.

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