Why districts are slow to charge market rates for water (2009)
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Why districts are slow to charge market rates for water (2009)
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Re: Why districts are slow to charge market rates for water (2009)
#2In short, because politicians decide, they know what their constituents want, and their constituents mostly haven't though about water economics beyond the fact that they want it cheap. And sometimes there are laws that make it even harder.
Did I miss anything?
Re: Why districts are slow to charge market rates for water (2009)
#3This needs a 2009 tag.
Re: Why districts are slow to charge market rates for water (2009)
#4one side effect of Proposition 218, put forth by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, was that it became illegal to charge any household more than the costs of conveyance to that parcel. It was illegal to charge punitive rates to send a price signal to wasteful users.
Why does punishing wasteful users require charging them more per unit? If I waste a lot of milk, like by bathing in it, I'm punished by having spent way more on milk than a normal person. "Use twice as much, spend twice as much" is fair.
Re: Why districts are slow to charge market rates for water (2009)
#5one side effect of Proposition 218, put forth by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, was that it became illegal to charge any household more than the costs of conveyance to that parcel. It was illegal to charge punitive rates to send a price signal to wasteful users. Why does punishing wasteful users require charging them more per unit? If I waste a lot of milk, like by bathing in it, I'm punished by having spen…
Because water is so cheap (cheaper than dirt) that it’s not punitive at all to pay for twice or ten or a hundred times normal.
Re: Why districts are slow to charge market rates for water (2009)
#699% Invisible did a podcast recently where they talked about a very similar issue: the privatization of parking meters in Chicago.
Parking meters have a similar problem. The purpose is for drivers to pay their fair share to use some real estate in a city, however the city and elected officials in charge have a vested interest to keep prices low. Nobody wants to be the mayor known for raising parking rates.
Privatization makes some sense in this case since a private company can actually make the meters charge closer to what parking should cost. However, it ended up being a pretty bad deal for Chicago in the end.
Re: Why districts are slow to charge market rates for water (2009)
#799% Invisible did a podcast recently where they talked about a very similar issue: the privatization of parking meters in Chicago. Parking meters have a similar problem. The purpose is for drivers to pay their fair share to use some real estate in a city, however the city and elected officials in charge have a vested interest to keep prices low . Nobody wants to be the mayor known for raising parking rates. Privatiza…
Sounds kind of like Ticketmaster. "Oh, the rates went up, that's not our fault, it's this private company." "Oh, so you're getting all of the extra money then?" "Not so much, well, the guy who set up the deal got a big personal payday, but we are getting only a tiny sliver of the ongoing extra revenue."
Re: Why districts are slow to charge market rates for water (2009)
#8The article is confused. Market pricing and conservation pricing are related but still different.
I’m in Dallas. We have months long periods almost every year where all our lakes are so overfull, we’re simply dumping excess water down the Trinity River to Houston’s Lake Livingston, which during those periods is typically well over capacity, too.
There’s no reason to conserve during those times. Want to grow a rain forest? Go for it! Conservation pricing is silly then.
Same for New Orleans. All that city has to do is put a straw in the Mississippi. There’s no conceivable situation where conservation is needed there.
Sure, there’s could be other limiters, like capacity to process and generate water. But that’s not a conservation issue.
Re: Why districts are slow to charge market rates for water (2009)
#9one side effect of Proposition 218, put forth by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, was that it became illegal to charge any household more than the costs of conveyance to that parcel. It was illegal to charge punitive rates to send a price signal to wasteful users. Why does punishing wasteful users require charging them more per unit? If I waste a lot of milk, like by bathing in it, I'm punished by having spen…
Water economics are weird.
Not because of anything directly in the economics, but because people have really weird ideas and emotional attachments. So instead of charging a market rate proportional to usage (plus a fee to access the network etc, and giving poor people money to afford all this), there's all kinds of weirdness and grandstanding.
See https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/08/25/fake-consensualism/ for a wider exploration of sacred value and taboo trade-offs.
People seem to prefer having the government snoop on and micromanage what you use your water for, eg watering your lawn or filling your pool, instead of charging people a reasonable rate like you suggest.
Re: Why districts are slow to charge market rates for water (2009)
#1099% Invisible did a podcast recently where they talked about a very similar issue: the privatization of parking meters in Chicago. Parking meters have a similar problem. The purpose is for drivers to pay their fair share to use some real estate in a city, however the city and elected officials in charge have a vested interest to keep prices low . Nobody wants to be the mayor known for raising parking rates. Privatiza…
Sounds kind of like Ticketmaster. "Oh, the rates went up, that's not our fault, it's this private company." "Oh, so you're getting all of the extra money then?" "Not so much, well, the guy who set up the deal got a big personal payday, but we are getting only a tiny sliver of the ongoing extra revenue."
sort of, yeah, Ticketmaster sort of sells "accountability as a service" so fans don't get mad at the artists.
I'm a centrist, but things like this push me further to the right personally. Governments can't charge what they ought to for parking/water and the people ultimately suffer the consequences.