How much more are you willing to pay for water?

The problem is the pricing structure. Water utilities face largely fixed costs as they have to maintain the dams, water/sewer pipes regardless of rainfall. Over the last few decades, urban water pricing has shifted its focus to variable water pricing as a way of encouraging water efficiency. The problem arises when you get your water usage forecasts wrong and end up with a massive over/under recovery to pay for your fixed costs.

Of course, urban water use is insignificant compared to our wonderfully subsidised irrigation industry… Bring on Basin Plan 2.0!

Even before you use a drop of water you pay for having water connected – this added tax on every water bill is just one way we get ripped off in Canberra.

It makes no sense that ACT’s water charges are higher than in other States. I got an email today from the Save our Garden City people that said a number of interesting things:

“We give some 97% of our average annual inflows downstream free of charge and, further, we, at our cost, pay for the dams which store water for downstream users who contribute nothing.

“Adelaide extracts up to 10 times more water from the Murray-Darling Basin than does Canberra – and Adelaide is not even in the Basin.

“For their efforts in cutting water use to only 20% of what it was per head in the 1950s, at the cost of dead trees and lawns and a degraded environment, Canberrans have been punished with the highest water prices in the country.

“Water prices should be cut now to operating costs only (about one-tenth of current prices) and infrastructure costs should be met by earmarked rates on the lands serviced.

“The ACT Treasury has never paid a cent towards water infrastructure. Dividends from ACTEW to the ACT Treasury should be stopped – they are just a hidden tax.

“For years ACTEW has been an abusive, price gouging, government monopoly which rations water instead of supplying it at its true cost.

“ACTEW should be abolished and turned into a non-profit public trust which delivers water at operating cost only. Water should cost nearer 40 cents a kilolitre then $4.66.”

I certainly found it convincing.

Wouldn’t mind the usage charges going up so much if a) they got rid of the connection charges or reduced it to a small amount to cover administrative costs in situations like vacant houses with hardly any usage and b) stopped requiring landlords to be debt collectors for actew. Tenants should be billed directly and responsible for the consequences of non payment. Tenants at the moment have very little incentive to use water sensibly as they know the landlord has very little power to do anything if they refuse to pay the bill. It also causes a lot of administrative overhead to collect water charges from tenants, increasing costs to landlords.

Also the fact that our water usage charges are much higher than other parts of australia already, is annoying.

You are asking the wrong question Johnboy. The REAL question is:
“How much does the ACT Government need to get as a dividend from ACTEW?”

Everything else—including the surrender monkeys at the ICRC—hangs off that.

dtc said :

Reduce the connection charge, low rates for initial usage (say as much as a family would use in the house being efficient, excluding garden), then big jump for use over that (perhaps with an even bigger jump at outrageous levels).

Keep in mind that as ACTEW is govt owned and pays the govt a dividend, that dividend is effectively tax. The govt could tell ACTEW just to break even, and water bills would be $60m odd lower overall per year. (of course, that money needs to be obtained from somewhere/not spent on something)

It needs to be properly government owned and ran. We are being raped by actew.

Reduce the connection charge, low rates for initial usage (say as much as a family would use in the house being efficient, excluding garden), then big jump for use over that (perhaps with an even bigger jump at outrageous levels).

Keep in mind that as ACTEW is govt owned and pays the govt a dividend, that dividend is effectively tax. The govt could tell ACTEW just to break even, and water bills would be $60m odd lower overall per year. (of course, that money needs to be obtained from somewhere/not spent on something)

Chop71 said :

Please don’t tell me the hive mind doesn’t care that your water bill could increase by up to 37% next year. Holy crap that is a lot (especially when you add it to electricity, car registration and everything else this town charges)

Perhaps we’ve got to stop basing our water charges on people guessing how much water Canberra is going to use in the next 5 years.

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/war-of-words-in-water-price-stoush-20120913-25twq.html

Please don’t tell me the hive mind doesn’t care that your water bill could increase by up to 37% next year. Holy crap that is a lot (especially when you add it to electricity, car registration and everything else this town charges)

gasman said:

As long as we can wash our cars and flush our toilets with drinking water, then water is too cheap.
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It seems counter-intuitive, but it ain’t so. The cost of running two separate water systems is far higher and more wasteful of resources than having a single one. Don’t forget, even grey water needs to be treated before it can be used for most purposes. You don’t want your dirty dishwater, which is full of grease and solids, to water your garden (it will kill your plants) or wash your car. You don’t want to wash your dishes or your clothes in water which is potentially contaminated with bacteria and viruses. It is simply much more practical to have a single system which provides safe drinking water everywhere. If people want to set up private greywater systems, fine. But it would be a massive financial impost for little benefit and some risks to mandate it.

Water is not a finite resource – it just keeps on recycling itself around the planet – it doesn’t get used up. The issue is with its distribution, not its availability.

It should also be pointed out that insufficient water use for flushing, whether in toilets or drains generally, clogs up pipes and overloads wastewater treatment facilities with too much muck and not enough water to dilute it.

There is a sort of Puritanism about water discussions which is usually not supported by dispassionate analysis.