RTP didn't help

1/8/2008 1:22:33 PM

Quote :

"^ I know right. Shouldn't we be charging a "move in" tax? We have to build all this infrastructure to support them and their families. Transplanted Yankees are killing us just as much as illegal immigrants. "

fantastic way to kill business and industry.


We pay taxes. The problem is city and county planning. We simply have not built enough reservoirs to handle the population. The Yankee transplants are paying their fair share of property taxes.

Quote :

"Is Meeker Republican?"

No, he's a democrat.

[Edited on January 8, 2008 at 1:32 PM. Reason : .]

1/8/2008 1:32:30 PM

Quote :

"I'm not necessarily saying a tiered system is bad for water usage. I am saying that if water were open to market forces, there would be no "stage 1" or "stage 2" restrictions... the only time you would hear about it is if we were in an emergency because people will only ration when they have to ration. Right now, we really don't have to ration expect for by thread of the government. People are washing their cars in their garages. If water were expensive, they wouldn't be doing that."

Agreed. We're basically going to the same place, just taking different routes.

1/8/2008 1:46:12 PM

eh, kinda.

I still say that the price of water should be fluid as a WHOLE. Although extra surcharges for overages may apply (like cell phones).

But the price of water should be allowed to operate within the confines of a free market. But as we have it now, the City of Raleigh basically runs a monopoly.

1/8/2008 1:53:21 PM

it doesn't matter too much, anyway, because the largest portion of the bill is not the water, it's the sewage and trash and other administrative fees. water is almost nothing. it really ticks me off that the trash and recycling fees have gone up so much over the past few years, and yet we are actually getting a poorer quality of service.

1/8/2008 2:32:26 PM

^^my whole thing is that the main goal here is to conserve water....if we have citizens that are already actively doing their part, they should not be, in essence, punished for that. the way I see it a flat increase would do more to increase revenue from water than actually conserve it.

I, for one already use a relatively small amount of water....I didn't water a lawn every day, or wash my car every week, take 20-30 minute showers ect.....why should I have to split the burden with people who use 3 or 4 times the amount of water i use when they could double or triple the rate they pay for extra water when they have to wash that car for the 3 time this month, or water their lawn twice a day to keep it bright green? They're the problem anyway, so the solution should center on them too imo.

1/8/2008 3:10:23 PM

There are so many problems with trying to switch to some kind of free market for water. Compared to oil, pumping water out of lakes/reservoirs is easy as hell. The total supply (in the lakes) may be limited, but they can pump it out, treat it, and send it to your house with little delay. We wouldn't see the prices rise much at all until we were pretty much out of water, because only then would the supply we could pump to consumers begin to shrink. Thats why we need someone (like the government) to try and regulate the amount of water removed.

If anything, I think trying to switch to a free market would make the water go away faster.

1/8/2008 3:26:00 PM

Tiered rates for usage (maybe even based upon square footage) are the best option. It encourages conservation and penalizes those who waste. I keep hearing a guy at work talking about when he can power wash his house, fencing, driveway, cars, etc. He does it every opportunity it is allowed.

Honestly, if people in this state would quit trying to grow fescue and switch to an appropriate grass like zoysia or bermuda then we would cut down tremendously on lawn watering needs.

1/8/2008 3:33:11 PM

Quote :

"the way I see it a flat increase would do more to increase revenue from water than actually conserve it. "

Absolutely not.

10 gallons charged at $1.00/gal = $10 revenue
5 gallons charged at $2.00/gal = $10 revenue


It forces conservation.


The reason why we had oil lines in the 70s was becasue we had a price cap on the price of gas. People began to horde gas because it was artificially cheap due to the price control (similar price control on water now). If gas were $10/gal back in the 70s during that time, people would have only gotten what they need, not everything they could. There would have been no lines at all. As a matter of a fact, the lines went away AS SOON AS THEY LIFTED THE PRICE CEILING.

We are about to start having "water lines" because people will be filling every jug they have in their house with water as soon as we're in the dire part of this drought. A hefty surcharge on water would ensure that people only took what they need.

1/8/2008 3:38:56 PM

Comparing water and gas doesn't work. They're not similar at all. They're obtained differently, processed differently, distributed differently, consumed differently.

1/8/2008 3:44:57 PM

Quote :

"A hefty surcharge on water would ensure that people only took what they need. "

a tiered system would do the exact same thing.

hypothetical:

$1/gal for the first 10 gallons = $10

$2 for the next 10 = $20

$4 for the next 10 = $40

$70 for 30 gallons that this person used as opposed to the person who doesn't go over 10 gallons paying (unfairly) 2.33/gallon, and effectively helping cut the cost for the over user.

1/8/2008 3:45:09 PM

But what if we don't have 10/gal to give everyone? Then you have water articficially cheap that people will horde.

1/8/2008 3:51:19 PM

if it gets low enough, people will horde it at any price.

1/8/2008 4:07:19 PM

^ Yes after we're all fucked,.


THe purpose is not to get there by market rationing.


Your plan would basically take us to the brink while trying to impose Stage 2 water conservation measures which are basically powerless.

1/8/2008 4:14:02 PM

it would do just the opposite....reward the citizens who are making an effort, and tax the shit out of the ones who don't.....as opposed to punishing positive and negative alike.

1/8/2008 4:21:17 PM

what good is a reward if there is no damn water??

You're still viewing water as infinite and a "right." A commodity can't be a right. Speech is a right. Water is not.




guess what, companies and businesses every day deal with supply shortages and you never have to know about them. The only time you do is when you notice that something is inordinarily expensive. You probably don't put two and two together, but that's what the market does. Companies handle these problems just fine, but governments don't because of issues like this. Everything is a "right".

[Edited on January 8, 2008 at 4:24 PM. Reason : .]

1/8/2008 4:22:54 PM

Quote :

"problem with the fees is: 1)they won't use the money to help acquire more water or make reservoirs 2) it'll be like every other tax hike and they won't bother to take it away"

1/8/2008 5:42:13 PM

how come they can't redirect some of the money from the stormwater runoff fees if they're in this much of a money crunch?

Meeker is making me really glad that I moved to Cary. At least this town had the foresight to implement a graywater collection system.

1/8/2008 6:34:01 PM

Quote :

"I don't see how that doesn't help your Quote : "I didn't see anything in that article about restricting development or requiring new developments/houses to pay something like a water investment tax so they can pay for the city's water resources budget requirements.""

That doesn't help because there have been laws in effect for a while requiring new buildings and new developments to use low-flow shower fixtures and the new low-flow toilets. A lot of people around here live in apartments and houses from the 80's and earlier, myself included. Asking builders to build homes with low-flow fixtures is pointless since they already do it. Asking homeowners to update their fixtures is one thing (they would probably do it to some extent since you can get a functional low flow shower fixture and some toilet tank inserts for under ten bucks), but asking lessors to go and spend their money on updating toilets and shower fixtures in homes that they don't pay the water bills for... That doesn't do anything! Why the hell should they feel obligated to do it if all it is for them is an expense. This measure doesn't restrict new development (which is a major part of the problem with water demand: new demand) and it offers no real incentive for the people that can afford to do it (most of the lessors) to install more efficient shower heads, toilets, dishwashers, or washing machines in the property they lease out to people.

Another thing some people aren't realizing: If you live in a building that was built before the new water restrictions were put into place in the 90's requiring everybody to have low flow fixtures and such, it's going to pretty much be impossible for you to reach any 25 gallon/day limit without updating all the fixtures in your home. Your shower heads (probably unchanged if it's an apartment) use 4-6 GPM, your toilets use 3-5 gallons of water every time you flush them, your clothes washer (standard vertical axis style washer) probably uses 30-40 gallons in a cycle, and your dishwasher likely uses about 20 gallons in a cycle. With all this you likely use 50-70 gallons of water a day, and you aren't really being wasteful in your usage. You've got old fixtures and appliances that use a lot of water. The most conserving most of us could afford to do is buying a low flow shower head and some teflon tape (lowest price you're going to find for this is about $8 which is reasonable, it'll get you a 2.5gpm shower head with a lather shutoff valve) and using some gladware containers filled with rocks to fill up some volume in the toilet tanks to reduce usage. You likely still do full dishwasher and laundry loads just to save money, and you can't very well reduce the amount of water required to cook your food or brush your teeth or shave. The problem here is that we're allowing new developments that don't pay any money IMMEDIATELY into infrastructure funding, and we're not providing new incentives (or running promotions with local business and whatnot) for people to more affordably update all of these appliances and fixtures in their homes. An increase in cost on the water bill will work, but like meeker said in the article, tiered bills are still a couple years off! Right now all we're seeing is an increase in our bills (even with conservation), and the rest of the water conserving measures (buying new appliances and fixtures) is put entirely on us. A lot of us are at the mercy of our landlords to have any updates done at all, and most of them won't do it since they're not the ones paying the water bills! We'll just be paying more money and the water problem won't get fixed.

The aforementioned comment about residential not being the majority of usage is spot on as well. Everybody should be paying more as a result of this, but it would make much more sense for meeker to offer a tax incentive for businesses to conserve water, along with a modest increase in expenses on the water bill to offer that extra push. Residential should have an increase in their bills, but they should push for that tiered system sooner than two years off and offer a tax incentive to property owners to update their fixtures and appliances (like a $50 rebate for each toilet updated with proof of an invoice and $100 rebates for updating larger things like dishwashers with energy star models and clothes washers with higher efficiency front-loading units). They should also work on getting new development to be reduced for areas under Raleigh's water supply unless they're going to have new developments operate using well water.

There's much more they could do than simply charge more for water, but it looks like they're just going with their existing plan (no extra money being spent on rapidly upgrading the infrastructure and computer systems to allow for tiered billing to hit the people who are consuming less reasonable levels of water) and encouraging private non-profit groups to do a few things for the most woefully impoverished. This might accomplish a minor decrease in usage overall, but it won't help solve the problem of water consumption. At the very very least they could've partnered with a few local businesses on some sort of sale on low flow fixtures to encourage people to update what they have.

Whatever, I guess that ends my second rant, haha.

1/8/2008 6:40:34 PM

Quote :

"The problem is city and county planning."

yes, the triangle in general is poor about this....

sadly chapel hill is in better shape than durham or raleigh... but that's only because they are so conservative about growth.... nothing else.

1/9/2008 12:53:10 PM

main issues right no...
1. Poor planning by Raleigh to plan for future water needs
2. Current drought
3. Thousands of illegal Mexicans putting a burden using Raleigh's water supply
4. Politicians exploiting the current situation to get more taxes out of Raleigh residents

1/9/2008 4:10:44 PM

Quote :

"3. Thousands of illegal Mexicans putting a burden using Raleigh's water supply"

I love how Mexicans are to blame.

I think we should hold joenumbers personally responsible. Him and his hour-long hours. Doesn't he live in Atlanta?

1/9/2008 4:56:52 PM

i'll be showering in the gym

1/10/2008 12:41:27 AM

Quote :

"3. Thousands of illegal Mexicans putting a burden using Raleigh's water supply"

Immigrants! I knew it was them! Even when it was the bears, I knew it was them.

1/10/2008 7:43:50 AM

If we got charged just on what we used in a tiered system I could wash my car again.

Buzz cut hair / working with indians anyways ftw!

1/10/2008 7:59:31 AM

I've been told in an econ class that this would never happen because this is like committing political suicide, since a lot of people think affordable water is an inalienable right.

It also does not follow the rules of free market since it is a) a monopoly and b) govt. regulated.

A couple of months back, 106.1 (i think) was pissed at the governor (i think) keeping his plants watered during the drought.

Sounds like everyone is doing their part, except people in power.

[/conspiracy]

1/10/2008 2:21:12 PM