LeakBird

(June 2, 2009, TriValleyCentral)
The company, which in Pinal County serves Casa Grande, Coolidge, Arizona City, Stanfield and other areas, has asked the Arizona Corporation Commission for approval to raise its general rates for a base revenue growth of about 35 percent.
The request was filed last year and a hearing is scheduled for Aug. 31 [...]

(June 3, 2009, WBALTV Channel 11)
The Baltimore City Board of Estimates voted Wednesday on a 9 percent increase to water and sewer rates, meaning the average family of four will pay about $72 more per year.
The system leaks 20 percent of its water each day, which is enough to fill the World Trade Center in [...]

(May 20, 2009, KGW Channel 8)
Proposals to increase water and sewer rates were introduced at Wednesday’s meeting of the Portland City Council.
Under the proposal, water rates would increase 17.9 percent, or about $2.76 per month for the average household.
Sewer rates would increase 6.5 percent, or about $3.02 [...]

(May 16, 2009, The Chicago Daily Herald)

Q. I have been renting a duplex unit for more than three years. A week ago, my landlord told me the water bills have been getting very high and that she was thinking about charging me for water. My lease states that I am not responsible for water unless [...]

(May 12, 2009, The Charlotte Observer)
City Manager Curt Walton recommended a $1.87 billion budget Monday that includes an increase in water rates but not property taxes.
Water users will see $2.37 a month added to the average $45.92 water bill – a 5.2 percent increase.
Walton’s proposed budget puts more money toward street resurfacing, but freezes [...]

(May 6, 2009, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
Atlanta’s water and sewer department is sitting on $3.9 million it should have refunded to thousands of customers.
Delinquent accounts now total more than $50 million and the department fails to collect millions more every year.
ills are based on estimates, rather than meter readings, for 10,000 accounts every month.
And, rate hikes [...]

(May 5, 2009, The San Luis Obispo Tribune)

San Luis Obispo residents could soon pay more for water and sewer services.
A typical family of four’s water bill could go up 12 percent this year, and an additional 11 percent in 2010, according to city water division Manager Gary Henderson.
The current rate of $47.15 for a household [...]

(May 2, 2009, The Statesboro Herald)
If the measure passes, water and sewer base rates will both go up. The water base rate will rise from $4.60 per month to $6.00 while the sewer rate does the same. As a result, the base rates for city residents will go up $2.80 per month.
Johnson said some of [...]

(May 1, 2009, The Atlanta Journal Constitution)
The rates approved in 2008 increased bills by 27.5 percent the first year, 12.5 percent the second, 12.5 percent the third and 12 percent the fourth. Franklin said Atlanta’s rates already are higher than other major cities.
Auditors suggested the later hikes might be reduced by as much as 2 [...]

In order to calculate how much your toilet wastes in a city like San Francisco, we need to know the water footprint of your entire building. Of course, if you’re a property manager or landlord, you’ll be especially interested in this, as tenants don’t foot the water bills anyhow.  I’m going to give facts from [...]

(April 29, 2009, The Daily News)
Bronx residents who managed to take time off from work for the afternoon public hearing voiced their opposition to a proposed 14% hike in water rates.
“It’s ridiculous,” said Evelyn Rodriguez, 57. “Don’t we pay enough for everything else? Everything goes up, and now they’re raising our water.”
If the measure is [...]

(April 26, 2009, The Ventura County Star)
Thousand Oaks plans to introduce a system of tiered water rates to motivate consumers to conserve…
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which supplies state water to area cities and communities, is requiring its customers to implement the ordinance and tiered rates to encourage users to conserve…
(Original Article Here)

(April 23, 2009, The Pasadena Star-News)

Some San Gabriel Valley residents could see their water rates go up by as much as 56 percent next year under a proposal by California American Water Co.
California American Water, which provides water to 28,000 households and businesses – or about 100,000 people – in the San Gabriel Valley, [...]

(April 24, 2009, The San Diego Union-Tribune)
After months of warnings and voluntary conservation programs, the San Diego County Water Authority yesterday moved to Level 2 drought alert.
The decision will spark mandatory water rationing of about 8 percent for residents throughout the county, from San Ysidro to Fallbrook. The planned restrictions include bans on certain [...]

(April 23, 2009, The Los Angeles Times)
DWP has a water conservation team whose members drive through neighborhoods in Los Angeles checking for water waste. If your sprinkler is running on a Wednesday, they can cite you for violating the conservation measures. For a first citation, you will receive a warning. Subsequent citations are subject to [...]

(April 22, 2009, The Portland Tribune)

“We have very good water,” Jon Hanken the city manager said. “But it isn’t cheap.”
Other charges on city water bills include a $15.70 meter charge plus 33 cents per every 100,000 gallons of water that is used or .0033 per gallon.
These charges pay for the management and maintenance of the [...]

(April 21, 2009, News4Jax)
JEA is proposing a 10 percent increase in its water and sewer rates in each of the next four years while also changing the way fees are structured.
The city-owned utility said the rate increase is needed to pay for loans taken to acquire and improve the water system from the city and [...]

Want to use more water?  Pay for it.
David Zetland, Aguanomics.com
The Water Myth is the myth that we have an endless water supply, renewing itself ad infinitum. How can we not believe in this myth when even our cats can drink from the potable water in our toilet bowls, for which we pay less than [...]

(April 16, 2009, Aguanomics)
SFPUC’s announcement of rate hikes to begin in July 2009 are so modest as to make me think that no amoung of profligate use will go punished. Please consider the following, submitted as Comment to the Chronicle’s March 5 article, “On Coping With the Drought”:
“For every conscientous consumer, operating on personal principles [...]

(April 15, 2009, Paul Kedrosky, Infectious Greed)
Major water price increases and supply cuts are underway in southern California, both of which are long overdue. This part of the state is a desert, and yet too many people live there, and too many of them live their water consumption lives like they are somewhere with higher [...]

(April 15, 2009, The San Francisco Chronicle)
Because the East Bay Municipal Utility District has urged both voluntary and mandatory conservation during the recent dry spell, the agency is delivering less water, which means lower revenues.
In an attempt to make up for the shortfall, district staffers recommend raising water rates by 7.5 percent annually for the [...]

(April 14, 2009, The Quincy Herald Whig)
Quincy aldermen heard a first reading of ordinances Monday that would raise water rates by 25 percent and sewer rates by 30 percent.
(Original Article Here)

(April 14, 2009, The Los Angeles Times)
It would be nice if only the overusers picked up that higher tab, but without a further, and very time-consuming, overhaul of the city’s rates, those higher prices would be borne by everyone. The council should take up that challenge too, but for now, the drought-year rates and the [...]

(April 10, 2009, The San Diego Tribune)
Water and sewer rates may soon be going up in Del Mar.
The Del Mar City Council voted unanimously Monday to approve higher rates for the next five years and set an appeal hearing for May 26 for anyone who opposes the increase. The time of the hearing has not [...]

(April 2, 2009, The New York Times)
New York City residents should brace for another double-digit increase in their water rates, even though they are conserving more water than ever before.
That is the mixed message that residents are likely to hear on Friday, when the New York City Water Board is expected to raise water and [...]

(March 30, 2009, Reuters)
New York City Comptroller William Thompson on Monday proposed using federal stimulus money and other solutions to spare city water ratepayers from another rate hike.
The city’s Water Board is scheduled to meet on Friday to consider raising rates. The board approved a 14.5 percent increase in 2008 and forecast another double-digit rate [...]

(March 20, 2009, Michael Pollak, The New York Times)
Q. Eight ounces of Poland Spring (plus a nice plastic bottle) costs about a dollar. How much does the same amount straight from the tap cost? I mean, how much does it really cost?
A. One two-thousandth as much, according to the city’s Department of Environmental Protection.
Both the [...]

(March 20, 2009, The San Diego Tribune)
The top 10 percent of residential water customers in Poway account for roughly 40 percent of all water used by the city, and the top 5 percent use about 25 percent.
They would be most affected by a proposal the City Council is considering to institute tiered water rates that [...]

David Zetland of Aguanomics and Professor Robert Stavins, Director of the Environmental Economics Program at Harvard, were “on the same page“ with regard to water conservation pricing after Professor Stavins wrote a recent op-ed for the Huffington Post.  Until Stavins took a slightly different tack on two water pricing misconceptions.
In his first piece, Professor Stavins [...]

(March 16, 2009, Robert Stavins, The Huffington Post)

Throughout the United States, water management has been approached primarily as an engineering problem, rather than an economic one. Water supply managers are reluctant to use price increases as water conservation tools, instead relying on non-price demand management techniques, such as requirements for the adoption of specific technologies [...]

After reading today’s article in the San Diego Tribune in which the Metropolitan Water District has its drinking straws in its final water reserves and options, I’m convinced that water rationing will not be averted in Southern California (or perhaps all of California for that matter).  In other words, we can bank on water rationing, [...]

(March 14, 2009, The Oroville Mercury-Register)
The state is shopping for water for the Drought Water Bank, but a variety of factors has supplies drying up.Despite a hefty price for the sale of water, environmental constraints and good prices for commodities have far less Sacramento Valley water users signing up to sell water to other parts [...]

(March 5, 2009, AZStarNet)
Customers of the Marana water utility will begin paying more for their water on March 27.

The Town Council on Feb. 24 approved an 8 percent increase in rates for the Marana Water Department, which serves about 5,000 customers.

It is the first water-rate increase for the town in more than 10 years, said [...]

(March 8, 2009, TBNWeekly)
The latest report from The Southwest Florida Water Management District shows aquifer levels are continuing to fall.
According to the district’s March 6 Aquifer Resource Weekly Update, the central aquifer, which is a water source for the Tampa Bay region, is down to a negative 1.69 feet. Last week, the aquifer was at [...]

(March 9, 2009, DelwareOnline)
Newark City Council is expected to raise its water rates 20 percent today, after backing off a controversial plan to increase rates for out-of-town customers by 30 percent.
Council members, facing criticism from area lawmakers and a crowd of about 100 at their last meeting, agreed to a 20 percent, across-the-board increase. Instead [...]

I think that David Zetland is onto the zeitgeist, only it hasn’t happened yet. What do I mean, or what is Mr. Zetland saying essentially?
Price water according to its scarcity, and water shortages will become a thing of the past.
This is the axe we hear Mr. Zetland grinding again and again, and it appears that [...]

(March 10, 2009, China Daily)
The authorities need to push ahead with a price hike, reflecting accurately the growing shortage of water in China and help plug further depletion of the resource, an official has said.
“We must set up a rational water pricing system adapted to the country’s severe shortage of water. So some cities will [...]

As the growing demand for all things water escalates across the United State (hydrologists, water conservation systems, water lawyers, new sources of water, et cet.), the drought environment, such as regions in Georgia, Florida, Nevada and California, has the highest market demand water conservation technologies for three reasons:

 
Timeliness
Fast Payback
Higher Water Rates

 
Timeliness
This is perhaps the most [...]

(March 7, 2009, The Mercury News)

Foster City residents who take their time in the shower or run the washing machine with just a few shirts inside will soon pay for their wasteful ways.
At a meeting Monday night, the Foster City City Council will consider approving a water rate structure that escalates the cost of water [...]

(March 7, 2009, MSNBC)
Using the back yard of a Tierrasanta resident as a backdrop, Mayor Jerry Sanders called on San Diegans to get serious about water conservation.
Sanders revealed what he has done personally to conserve and showed clear disappointment in the overall efforts of San Diegans.
“Despite some successes, we still continue to fall shrt of [...]

(March 7, 2009, AZCentral)
A Carefree resident is challenging Cave Creek’s water-rate hike that would affect 9,000 water users in the northeast Valley.
Jim Peirce, a customer of Cave Creek’s municipal water system, took out petitions for a referendum that would reverse legislation to raise water rates in Cave Creek and parts of Carefree and unincorporated [...]

(March 5, 2009, Aguanomics)
…Says Harvard Professor Stavins at the Huffington Post. His op/ed continues:
Throughout the United States, water is under-priced. Efficient use of water will take place only when the price reflects the actual additional cost of making that water available. Lest one fear that higher water rates would mean that Americans would go thirsty, [...]

(March 6, 2009, The Mercury News)

Residents of a Santa Cruz Mountains hamlet have successfully argued that a 30 percent water rate hike in financially-tough times is too much.
The San Lorenzo Valley Water District got more than 1,500 written objections out of its 7,300 customers, as well as a vocal crowd at the board’s Thursday night [...]

(March 4, 2009, The Times West Virginian)
The West Virginia Public Service Commission has agreed to hear an appeal in the Fairmont water-rate increase case.
A municipal appeal case was opened because the Valley Falls Public Service District and the City of Mannington protested the water rate increase, said Sarah Robertson, a spokesperson for the PSC.
The issue [...]

(March 4, 2009, David Zetland, Aguanomics)
RT writes:
I am an economist from Australia who works on among other issues urban water policy.
I read with interest your nicely-written Forbes article.
We seem to have pretty much a similar situation here in Australia and a few of us make similar suggestions.
I’d love to understand more about the your situation [...]

Yesterday I was talking to a San Francisco plumber named Jim.
“You know the real reason water rates are going up?” he asked me.
“Because the water utilities’ revenues are down in these troubled times,” I replied.
“Yes, but it’s actually deeper than that,” he said.  “We’ve gotten more water efficient.  We’re not using as much water.”
“I find [...]

(March 2, 2009, The Houston Chronicle)

Water bills in Houston are poised to go up about $2.26 a month for an average homeowner under a plan City Council is expected to begin weighing today.
Under procedures put in place after 2004 – when water bills went up as high as 10 percent for many residents – rates [...]

Acoustic water leak detection has been around a long time. It predominates in the water industry when it comes to listening for leaks in underground pipes, in order to protect and secure municipal water supplies from catastrophic underground leaks.  A couple of companies that come to mind are SubSurface Leak Detection, Inc, Davis-Inotek Instruments and [...]

(March 2, 2009, The Richmond Daily News)
Richmond’s water and sewer line systems are old, worn down and some think expensive.
Richmond Third Ward Candidate Terrie Lee Stanley addressed the Richmond City Council on Wednesday night to make a plea on behalf of residents.
Stanley said she had been contacted by 13 residents just in one day about [...]

I’ve written about how to calculate your San Francisco water bill, but I thought it might be useful to know how the SFPUC functions and just how many landlords and property managers are getting excessively high water bills due to the likes of tenants’ running toilet conditions everyday.
Back in June of 2008, I spoke with [...]