Madison and Waukesha Water

When government regulates it should be thoughtful and reasonable. When it provides a service it should charge fairly.

Last Friday The Capital Times reported that Madison Alder Satya Rhodes-Conway met with fifty citizens to discuss ways of reducing water consumption. Two ideas considered were incentive based rates that charge more per gallon over the first 160,000 gallons used annually and changes in billing cycles.

The Madison Water Utility bills twice yearly. It was suggested that monthly billing would remind people of the cost of water and encourage conservation.

The left and the right both love to regulate to control behavior when it comes to their high priority issues. The problem is that sometime the regulations in place may be better than the proposed new ones, or education may work between than regulation.

Take the billing. It cost the city of Madison $2.04 to send out each water bill. There are 72,095 bills so the cost to send them out twice a year is $294,148. Send those bills out monthly and the cost jumps to $1,764,886.

I don't know if it matters much but in repeated polls over the years, water utility customers made it clear they want biannual billing. I hope what the customer wants counts for something.

Now for the pricing systems. First, the Waukesha pricing system does not kick in until the consumer uses 160,000 gallons annually.  Since the average Madison residential household uses well under 60,000 gallons annually it will not impact a lot of homes unless the threshold is significantly lowered.  Clearly the Waukesha concept may look good in theory but it does not impact but a tiny one or two percent of the users.

When we compare the water bills of the two communities we begin to see some significant differences. Both have demand charges for the 5/8' or 3/4" pipe that feeds water into the home, a fire protection charge to cover the cost of hydrants, and a sewer demand charge for the handling of waste water. But progressive Madison also has a fee based on the pervious and impervious surfaces of the property. And Madison also has a land fill fee.

In terms of cost, for a home that uses 75,000 gallons a year, the bill in Madison is $426.62 and the bill in Waukesha is $556.40. In Madison the actual charge for the water including the demand charge is $146, in Waukesha it is $224.24

Some might now say water is too cheap in Madison. Certainly Nestle and Bechtel would.

Madison is a community where forty percent of our children live in homes below the poverty line. Despite recent quality issues, Madison is able to provide water cheaper and more efficiently than Waukesha.

The Waukesha pricing system is not significant in terms of impacting 99% of water customers. To be really effective, the volume level that triggers the price increase must be significantly lowered. If our goal is to conserve water, perhaps education might be a more effective tool than raising costs that will have a disparate impact on low income families.

Water conservation tips from Madison and Waukesha

To understand what is going on in Waukesha I suggest the Political  Environment where Jim Rowen writes extensively about Waukesha and Lake Michigan water. and the Great Lakes Water Compact.

Comments

[Melissa Scanlan]

Increasing the price of water as usage increases can encourage water conservation. However, I agree that the increase needs to start at a point that is meaningful. Rates are just one of many strategies to encourage water conservation, and should not be pursued solo. Midwest Environmental Advocates published a report on water conservation that provides examples of best practices. You can download it for free at http://www.midwestadvocates.org/media/publications/index.html.

This type of inreasing rate pricing is preferable (conservation-wise) to that which exists in most of Wisconsin - the declining rate structure for large water users. This is just what it sounds like, the more water you use, the less it costs per unit. This unfortunately is the prevailing rate structure set by Wisconsin's PSC and this needs to be addressed.

[Dan Sebald]

A progressive water charge (more use, bigger fee) would be the way to go for conservation, I'd think.

There is so much more to the issue of water, and in such a way that it doesn't even come to mind. It hinges on the lack of forethought when cities began building infrastructure. First, we (meaning just about every city I know of) use perfectly good drinking water for things like toilets and lawns. Perhaps there is no meaningful way of dealing with that at this point, but it is kind of wasteful. In the same way, we mix residential and industrial waste streams, if I understand correctly. In some ways, that is another subsidy for corporations. Why doesn't industry treat its more toxic waste stream separately?

[Asha]

Thanks for breaking that down; you brought up things that hadn't occurred to me.

I can't wait for the day when bottled water is history as it is wasteful in so many ways.

[Jim Kelly]

The residents of Madison should be getting credit for the awareness of proper water usage. Just 30 years ago, average residential consumption averaged over 100 ccf (74,800 gallons). Last year that average was 85 ccf (63,660 gallons).
Over the years, conservation programs initiated by then manager Larry Russel, and followed through by subsequent managers have not only dealt with the residential but total consumption. The increase in annual consumption has lagged behind the total development in the city. Given the conservation efforts already in place, care should be given to set those limits so that penalties are not set on folks who are already sensitive to water use.
One of the real problems with the Utility has not been addressed, and that is the financial structure of the Utility. Because of certain changes in financial reporting, the fact that the Utility has lost money from operations for the last two years has not been highlighted. This will hamper the Utility's ability to borrow for future improvements