LeakBird

(April 30, 2009, Aguanomics)
I hope that Maude Barlow tells her fellow citizens THIS fact: Cheap water leads to more demand (Canadians have the highest per capita consumption of water in the world.)
Bottom Line: We cannot manage water if we don’t know how much we use or how much that use costs (economically or environmentally).
(Original Post [...]

(April 21, 2009, Aguanomics)
Southern Californians use about 350 gallons of water per day per household (of 3). That’s about 110 gallons/capita/day (gcd).
People in San Francisco use about 63 gcd, and people in the Bay Area use about 97 gcd.
(Original Post Here)

(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 [...]

(March 19, 2009, Aguanomics)
ID asks:
One of the structural issues I see with regard to pricing water is metering.

I’m sure the technology exists or could easily exit to monitor my water usage tied to a dollar amount.
I would like an easy to read display: Gallons used, unit cost, total cost. Generally metering is on [...]

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 [...]

We at Leakbird Industries are proud to be part of next week’s Water Conservation Showcase, on Tuesday, March 24, from 10:00 am to 7:30 pm, at the Pacific Energy Center in San Francisco.
Lot’s of folks in the water industry are going to be there, and Aguanomics’ David Zetland is even stopping by!
There’s a short list [...]

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, Aguanomics)
The title of this post is my reformulation of “missing the forest for the trees,” and the subject of the post is a new report from the Pacific Institute.
In Water Scarcity and Climate Change: Growing Risks for Businesses and Investors, the PI assesses the various risks to water supplies that companies should [...]

(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, David Zetland, Aguanomics)
(via DW) The Mayor’s office sent out this press release [pdf] yesterday:
San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders is calling on all San Diegans to step up water conservation efforts in the wake of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s state of emergency declaration for California’s water supplies.
“The Governor’s message is right on target,” said [...]

(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 [...]

(March 3, 2009, Aguanomics)
I talked to Ray Walker, a retired water rights analyst, about the “new source” of water he’s been mentioning in comments to this blog. Since both of us are interested to find out if any water managers are interested in this new supply, I am posting his request for expressions of interest. [...]

(Feb. 28, 2009, Aguanomics)
Aquadoc’s review of Blue Gold attracted an interesting comment:
—————-
Mike, I am compelled to answer your hypothetical question of Maude Barlow: “why is privatization of our water so bad?”
While designing and constructing water delivery sources by experts make sense, the delivery of water is not a highly specialized technology and therefore is quite [...]

(Feb. 25, 2009, Aguanomics)
Readers will know that I favor neither public nor private (investor-owned) provision of water, since the problems of ownership structure are less important than the problems of monopoly. (And the solution to monopoly — if not competition — is careful community monitoring.)
For more evidence on what does and does not matter, read [...]

(Feb. 24, 2009, Aguanomics)
San Diego is looking north for water this year, working out a number of smaller option agreements with Sacramento Valley Districts. I looked into one 10,000 AF transfer with South Feather Water and Power to get a handle on numbers for this year.
San Diego is paying $10 per acre-foot for the option [...]

(Feb. 24, 2009, Aguanomics)
The battle is getting started:
The California Legislative Analyst’s Office recommends that the Legislature turn groundwater over to the state, which would remove local control
[snip]
[farmers] say they fear that the state would require water meters, find out how much water everyone’s using and charge for it.
Valente, vineyard and orchard manager for John Kautz [...]

(Feb. 23, 2009, David Zetland, Aguanomics)
I’m thinking that the water managers and politicians in San Diego must be drinking something other than simple, tasty water. It seems that they are bound and determined to implement the most-stupid possible water rationing scheme, i.e.,
Even San Diegans who have torn out their lawns, planted drought-tolerant landscaping and scrimped [...]

(Feb. 19, 2009, Aguanomics)
Throughout this blog, I have advocated all-in-auctions for allocation of water among rights’ holders at the wholesale level (e.g., among farmers in an irrigation district, urban water agencies that buy from a wholesaler, or between sectors — ag, urban and environment) and conservation pricing for homeowners at the retail level (i.e., every [...]

(Feb. 19, 2009, Aguanomics)
CL sent in this:
I recently got a letter from my apartment complex telling me they are switching from hot water sub-metering to a ratio-utility billing system [RUBS], and they will bill based on square footage of the apartment. From what I can tell, sub metering is superior because it gives people a [...]

(Feb. 17, 2009, Aguanomics)
Tom Graff of EDF asks:
Can we use the attention the drought has focused on water to address long-term issues, including most notably the effects of climate change, simultaneously with the focus on addressing this year’s immediate drought-related problems?…and here’s what I said:
Now is the time to introduce the radical (!) notion of [...]

(Feb. 15, 2009, Aguanomics)
Last week, Judge Wanger of the US District moderated a debate between farmers and environmentalists over water exports from the Delta last week in Fresno.
Although the debate included the typical give and take, the part that got everyone’s attention was this comment by Lloyd Carter, who represented the environmentalists. When asked about [...]

(Feb. 12, 2009, Aguanomics)
I have criticized rationing as uneconomical, and I have criticized dumb rationing as unfair, yet water managers continue to pursue it.
What do I mean by that? Cutting EVERYONE back by 20% when supply falls by 20%. That’s not only lame compared to raising prices, but it’s patently unfair to cut water wasters [...]

(Feb. 9, 2009, Aguanomics)
David Besley sent me his article comparing Australia to Georgia. Besides the usual points (farmers can survive and thrive with water markets), the article had some new stuff:
Before it reaches the Southern Ocean, the Murray drains into two large lakes that are surrounded by wetlands.
[snip]
“We had the driest years on record in [...]

I finally got to catch David Zetland in person the other night, at the Black Rocks Arts Foundation (BRAF) on 3rd St.  The theme was “Elemental Interactions: Water” and Mr. Zetland opened with a 23-Minute talk, which I was able to film with my Flip camcorder.
I’ve broken Zetland’s talk up into three 7-minute parts:
Part 1 [...]

(Feb. 6, 2009, Aguanomics)
This 26 minute PBS video is excellent for its overview of California water issues. They interview farmers in the Central Valley (”protect our way of life”), enviros (”we can’t keep taking water from nature”) and have a good overview of the technology (water recycling, reverse osmosis, etc.) What do they forget to [...]

(Jan. 30, 2009, Aguanomics)
The simple answer is that politicians want it to happen — no matter what the economists say. (The fact that some economists also support the PC is practically irrelevant; notice how Schwarzenegger is pushing for the PC without waiting for any scientific or economic justification.)
This case reminds me of when politicians ignored [...]

(Jan. 28, 2009, Aguanomics)
This post is important and perhaps paradigm shifting. Let’s see if you agree…
It’s conventional wisdom that farmers “use” 70-80 percent of all developed* water supplies. But farmers do not use water in the same way as municipal and industrial (M&I) users do. When I use water to flush the toilet, that water [...]

We’ve been watching water rates jump here and there, 5%, 10%, sometimes 20% or 30%, all across the nation for the last year. But shocking news was delivered today that San Diego customers may soon have a 200% to 400% water rate increase on their hands!
There’s some SERIOUS groundwork (or groundwater-work) for water rationing, followed [...]

(Jan. 23, 2009, Aguanomics)
Speaking of water managers out of control, Aquadoc mentions “ethics” in this WaterWired post:
Several years ago, I listened to a talk by a Federal scientist about climate change in the Southwest. After the talk, he was unusually candid. What really annoyed him was seeing Western governors trekking to DC, hats in hands, [...]

(Jan. 22, 2009, Aguanomics)
[Warning! Feisty post today. This Mississippi thing pisses me off!]
Phoenix is losing people from a slowing economy — not because of water shortages.
When will scarce water slow or reverse growth in dry places? I don’t think it ever will — mainly because there is so much slack in the system. Many crops [...]

(Jan. 21, 2009, Aguanomics)
So, a few days ago Mike Wade said that “water markets” already exist in California, but facts appear to contradict that assertion.
As a businessman once said to me “Water markets? Great — where does the WSJ publish the price?”
In fact, water IS traded here and there in California, but there are so [...]

(Photo Courtesy of Collectors-Badges.com)
Aguanomics water virtuoso David Zetland recently did a 26-minute interview with Bloomberg Radio that’s well worth listening to. Among a myriad of thoughtful points, one caught my attention in particular: The costliness of water rationing.
Zetland was referring to a tack Santa Barbara took in the 80’s during another big California drought, whereby [...]

(Jan. 20, 2009, Aguanomics)
As promised in the comments to this post, I spoke to Mike Wade, Executive Director of the California Farm Water Coalition (CFWC) about water pricing and water markets.
We had a long conversation, but here are the comments that Mike wanted on the record:

CFWC favors a “fix” in the Delta that serves [...]

(Jan. 19, 2009, Aguanomics)
A few months back, I blasted East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) for their badly-designed water conservation scheme. Last week, I got my water bill for the past two months, and now I see that I was too kind.
EBMUD is really NOT doing a good job at handing the water shortage.
Here [...]