Lovely: The price of water in the U.S. (especially Austin) is skyrocketing

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20300]

Infrastructure week, anybody? U.S. water prices rose an average of 80% from 2010-2018.  Clean water is increasingly out of reach for poor people. 

 

Quote

Our research found that between 2010 and 2018 water bills rose by at least 27%, while the highest increase was a staggering 154% in Austin, Texas, where the average annual bill rose from $566 in 2010 to $1,435 in 2018 - despite drought mitigation efforts leading to reduced water usage.

Meanwhile, federal aid to public water utilities, which serve around 87% of people, has plummeted while maintenance, environmental and health threats, climate shocks and other expenditures have skyrocketed.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/23/millions-of-americans-cant-afford-water-bills-rise

[Upgrayedd 5743]

https://www.theonion.com/amount-of-water-man-just-used-to-wash-dish-to-be-prize-1819578198

HARTFORD, CT—Noting how it would one day be regarded as an almost unimaginably precious bounty, sources confirmed Tuesday that the quantity of water local resident Kevin Lachowsky just used to wash a single dish will be the same amount awarded as the grand prize of hand-to-hand death matches in the year 2065

[NWBuck 8511]

About 10 years ago I heard someone talk about how water (not oil) would be the foundation for the next great global conflict. The speaker talked about how major corporations have been working to buy water rights globally for just this reason, and that you could see this in Coke/Pepsi/etc. moving to selling bottled water to get people used to purchasing it from them.

So, this doesn't surprise me... as it's been an issue in the developing world forever- not just access to water, but access to water that was potable. If we're willing to have Flint Michigan be compromised by industrial issues and infrastructure failures, you can only imagine what's going on as we bring our version of capitalism to the world.

Oh, and obligatory:

[Brisketexan 103148]

7 minutes ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

despite drought mitigation efforts leading to reduced water usage.

I will note that this is the biggest disconnect regarding how people understand water costs.  I heard an expert say this, and it's absolutely true: "water is free -- it falls from the sky."  What you pay for are the reservoirs to catch it, the plants and materials to treat it, the pipes to transport it, the smaller pipes to distribute it, the meters to measure it, etc.  You are paying to build and maintain hundreds of thousands of miles of pipes, which have to be in good repair and be kept at pressure to ensure that you don't get sick from drinking the water in them.

So, the fixed costs for any water utility are almost all of its costs - if the consumers use 10 million gallons of water or 10 gallons of water, it has to pay for all of those fixed costs just the same.  So, reduction of usage actually -- and ironically -- can lead to a higher per-unit cost for water (because that's how we decided utilities should bill for water -- per unit), because the utility has to recover the same amount of money spread out over fewer units of water.

And, when you have many utilities that built out their systems mostly 25-50 years ago, and have deferred a lot of maintenance and replacement so they could avoid raising rates....now the systems are due for lots of maintenance and replacement costs.  If you own a house, you know this: you can do the maintenance now, or you can put it off for later (when it will be more expensive), but you WILL have to do it.  It's just a question of when.

[jimmyjazz 45055]

Hey to T. Boone Pickens.  Fucker tried to sell water flowing downstream in a river.

[Mighty fine 169]

For those interested, the draft regional water plans for most of the state regional water planning groups were published recently. These are fairly interesting in how they identify future projects and provide estimates for developing each.

[Parliament 13979]

Whiskey's for drinkin,' water's for fightin.'

[Beantown Express 2.0 6489]

Isn’t Michael Burry (the guy from The Big Short that predicted the housing crisis) investing solely in water and food/land with water supplies that can grow food and then send it to water poor areas..... like Austin someday.

[Biff Tannen 44919]

7 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

I will note that this is the biggest disconnect regarding how people understand water costs.  I heard an expert say this, and it's absolutely true: "water is free -- it falls from the sky."  What you pay for are the reservoirs to catch it, the plants and materials to treat it, the pipes to transport it, the smaller pipes to distribute it, the meters to measure it, etc.  You are paying to build and maintain hundreds of thousands of miles of pipes, which have to be in good repair and be kept at pressure to ensure that you don't get sick from drinking the water in them.

So, the fixed costs for any water utility are almost all of its costs - if the consumers use 10 million gallons of water or 10 gallons of water, it has to pay for all of those fixed costs just the same.  So, reduction of usage actually -- and ironically -- can lead to a higher per-unit cost for water (because that's how we decided utilities should bill for water -- per unit), because the utility has to recover the same amount of money spread out over fewer units of water.

And, when you have many utilities that built out their systems mostly 25-50 years ago, and have deferred a lot of maintenance and replacement so they could avoid raising rates....now the systems are due for lots of maintenance and replacement costs.  If you own a house, you know this: you can do the maintenance now, or you can put it off for later (when it will be more expensive), but you WILL have to do it.  It's just a question of when.

Yep. I remember when we all conserved water in the mid 2010s and the bills went up. 

[FORTY NINE TO ZERO 2617]

You would be surprised by the amount of “waste” from city pipes. It’s crazy high. 

[workswithseed 2012]

If I remember correctly, we were gonna use our emergency fund to work on our water infrastructure back after the 2011 drought.

[Larry T. Spider 1740]

32 minutes ago, Xian said:

You would be surprised by the amount of “waste” from city pipes. It’s crazy high. 

I remember reading about that during the last drought. It was a crazy amount. 

In some of the other threads I’ve said that traffic/mobility is the critical issue of the next 10 years for Austin. It will make or break us in terms of ever having a functional system. If you are looking 20+ years, water will be the major issue. Austin metro will have over 4 million people so droughts will strain the supply much more than currently.

[High Plains Drifter 10915]

 

This hits close to home. Earlier this year I had to drill my water well deeper. Had to go an additional 300 ft down to get 15 gal/min. When I bought my place 15 years ago, I was getting 10 gal/min.

[Gil Bang 25509]

Lake Powell is the most fucked-up thing you could imagine.  Leaks water like South Austin's mom leaks jizz

[washparkhorn 9894]

Desalinization in an expensive mixed bag of issues. Damn expensive.

[High Plains Drifter 10915]

4 minutes ago, washparkhorn said:

Desalinization in an expensive mixed bag of issues. Damn expensive.

 

El Paso has the largest inland desalination plant in the world.

https://www.epwater.org/our_water/water_resources/desalination

[tx 3 putt 74769]

hit's close to home, im addicted to high ph water

[High Plains Drifter 10915]

39 minutes ago, washparkhorn said:

Desalinization in an expensive mixed bag of issues. Damn expensive.

 

The only way El Paso could afford that plant was because they partnered up with Fort Bliss and got some of that sweet sweet federal pork money. Its called the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Plant for a reason.

Way back when El Paso's freshwater wells were turning brackish, there was talk of buying water from ranches to the east (Van Horn area) and piping it to El Paso. But that was going to be a political shit fest, not to mention also very expensive.

[SydneyCarton 47092]

8 hours ago, Beantown Express 2.0 said:

Isn’t Michael Burry (the guy from The Big Short that predicted the housing crisis) investing solely in water and food/land with water supplies that can grow food and then send it to water poor areas..... like Austin someday.

That is correct. 

[Parliament 13979]

We poop in potable water. We irrigate lawn grass in the desert. Makes no sense.

[FORTY NINE TO ZERO 2617]

10 hours ago, Larry T. Spider said:

I remember reading about that during the last drought. It was a crazy amount. 

In some of the other threads I’ve said that traffic/mobility is the critical issue of the next 10 years for Austin. It will make or break us in terms of ever having a functional system. If you are looking 20+ years, water will be the major issue. Austin metro will have over 4 million people so droughts will strain the supply much more than currently.

They actually talked about it on Houston npr this morning. I can’t remember the exact number, but 13-16% of all Houston’s drinking water is lost due to leaking pipes.  Crazy. 

[gmr548 16253]

The cost of water is a weird issue. On the one hand, it's been so cheap, even in arid areas, that horribly wasteful use isn't deterred at all. On the other hand, raising the price mostly just punishes low and middle income households and not the real culprits.

We're going to have to really change the way we use water in my lifetime. Irrigated lawns (unless we're talking non potable tested wastewater), private swimming pools, etc. really shouldn't even be legal in a place like Phoenix, LA, etc. Even Austin honestly.

But by far the biggest waste is agriculture. Cattle and cotton use a fucking ludicrous amount of water. It's ridiculous that those are both so big in west Texas. Growing almonds in the CA central valley. We farm up and down the Colorado river in the middle of the dryest portion of North America. On and on.

The Great Lakes states are going to make a comeback eventually because of this.

[HornOnTheBayou 8816]

14 minutes ago, gmr548 said:

We're going to have to really change the way we use water in my lifetime. Irrigated lawns (unless we're talking non potable tested wastewater), private swimming pools, etc. really shouldn't even be legal in a place like Phoenix, LA, etc. Even Austin honestly.
 

Yep, I've been saying this for a while. I wouldn't make them illegal, but I would jack up the price of water for heavy users. Something like the first x number of gallons a family or business uses per month would be cheap (or hell even free for the minimum number of gallons needed to live). Then have a tier pricing plan. The next y number of gallons is a little more expensive, then on and on. If you want to water your grass every day, it's going to cost you.

[Biff Tannen 44919]

I have an app called Dropcountr that connects to COA Utilities and keeps track of my household usage.  It's pretty cool and simple and a good way to keep track of your personal use.  I average right around 2000 gallons/month.  There's only 2 of us, so our usage is way below "similar" households.

[Mighty fine 169]

If I remember correctly, we were gonna use our emergency fund to work on our water infrastructure back after the 2011 drought.

The state passed legislation in 2013 on this, then it was set up as the State Water Implementation Fund for Texas (SWIFT) and is administered by the Texas Water Development Board. Basically a portion of the rainy day money was set aside and allocated for low interest loans /grant funding for water supply projects.

[fattyflattie 4631]

9 minutes ago, HornOnTheBayou said:

Yep, I've been saying this for a while. I wouldn't make them illegal, but I would jack up the price of water for heavy users. Something like the first x number of gallons a family or business uses per month would be cheap (or hell even free for the minimum number of gallons needed to live). Then have a tier pricing plan. The next y number of gallons is a little more expensive, then on and on. If you want to water your grass every day, it's going to cost you.

This is how my bill already works, except for the free portion of course. 

[Mighty fine 169]

Yep, I've been saying this for a while. I wouldn't make them illegal, but I would jack up the price of water for heavy users. Something like the first x number of gallons a family or business uses per month would be cheap (or hell even free for the minimum number of gallons needed to live). Then have a tier pricing plan. The next y number of gallons is a little more expensive, then on and on. If you want to water your grass every day, it's going to cost you.

This is a common practice. Pretty sure a tiered rate structure is also a requirement for utilities mandated to have a Water Conservation Plan.

[Parliament 13979]

 

 

 

 

But by far the biggest waste is agriculture. Cattle and cotton use a fucking ludicrous amount of water. It's ridiculous that those are both so big in west Texas. Growing almonds in the CA central valley. We farm up and down the Colorado river in the middle of the dryest portion of North America. On and on.

 

The Great Lakes states are going to make a comeback eventually because of this.

 

Ag has a ways to go for sure, but we're continually getting better. One way is subsurface drip irrigation. Farmers can irrigate without water ever seeing daylight. It's rather expensive, but saves a LOT of water. Crop yields will go up as well.

 

Many plains States have restrictions on how much water you can apply to crops. Nebraska does a very good job with it. Texas...not so much. Or not when I lived there.

 

ETA

Golf courses are worse. You can't feed people with bentgrass.

 

 

 

[gyroprotagonist 2591]

4 minutes ago, Parliament said:

Golf courses are worse. You can't feed people with bentgrass.

let them eat bentcake

One year is certainly not a trend, but it is interesting to see Dallas up 11" YoY for rainfall.  I have not heard about any water restrictions yet for the city this year.  But they should just stick to the drought plan for lawn watering every year from now on and have people adjust to that.

Hell, even hiring one for enforcement person to fine businesses who have their sprinklers going full blast in the middle of a rainstorm would be worth it.  Is a rain sensor even part of a new construction permit?  should be.

[Brisketexan 103148]

8 minutes ago, Parliament said:

Golf courses are worse. You can't feed people with bentgrass.

[gmr548 16253]

Yep, I've been saying this for a while. I wouldn't make them illegal, but I would jack up the price of water for heavy users. Something like the first x number of gallons a family or business uses per month would be cheap (or hell even free for the minimum number of gallons needed to live). Then have a tier pricing plan. The next y number of gallons is a little more expensive, then on and on. If you want to water your grass every day, it's going to cost you.

Yeah that's kind of my first instinct. The first X gallons that would be a generous allotment for daily use - drinking, bathing, cooking, whatever - are cheap. The next tier that you could really only reasonably hit by landscaping or having a pool or what have you is a lot more expensive. And if you're a super user, you pay the price.

I'm open to deeper discussion or critique on that plan though. I'm sure there are aspects I haven't considered. And of course, we need to get industrial and especially agricultural use under control if we want to actually solve the problem.

[Nivek 16643]

[gmr548 16253]

 
 
 

 
Ag has a ways to go for sure, but we're continually getting better. One way is subsurface drip irrigation. Farmers can irrigate without water ever seeing daylight. It's rather expensive, but saves a LOT of water. Crop yields will go up as well.
 
Many plains States have restrictions on how much water you can apply to crops. Nebraska does a very good job with it. Texas...not so much. Or not when I lived there.
 
ETA
Golf courses are worse. You can't feed people with bentgrass.
 
 
 

I don't doubt that any of that, but at the end of the day, you can't engineer growing cotton in the desert into being sustainable. We're nowhere close to even breaking even on groundwater use/replenishment on the plains. That's the sort of thing I'm getting at.

[Mighty fine 169]

Isn’t Michael Burry (the guy from The Big Short that predicted the housing crisis) investing solely in water and food/land with water supplies that can grow food and then send it to water poor areas..... like Austin someday.

Austin has untapped options (eg, go east and tap the Carrizo Wilcox aquifer system similar to San Antonio). This coupled with the growth of reuse and alternative technologies such as Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR) will set them up well into the future.

 

With regards to private investment, PPPs are increasing in popularity (see SAWS Vista Ridge wellfield and pipeline). I think the economics on water supply projects are prohibitive to private investment/ development unless (a) you have and can stand to sit on a shit ton of capital/assets for a 20 year horizon without making, or (b) you own a shit ton of land sitting on top of a prolific aquifer (see Temple Inland/Forestar)

 

[Serak The Preparer 3408]

25 minutes ago, HornOnTheBayou said:

Yep, I've been saying this for a while. I wouldn't make them illegal, but I would jack up the price of water for heavy users. Something like the first x number of gallons a family or business uses per month would be cheap (or hell even free for the minimum number of gallons needed to live). Then have a tier pricing plan. The next y number of gallons is a little more expensive, then on and on. If you want to water your grass every day, it's going to cost you.

 

3 minutes ago, gmr548 said:

Yeah that's kind of my first instinct. The first X gallons that would be a generous allotment for daily use - drinking, bathing, cooking, whatever - are cheap. The next tier that you could really only reasonably hit by landscaping or having a pool or what have you is a lot more expensive. And if you're a super user, you pay the price.

I'm open to deeper discussion or critique on that plan though. I'm sure there are aspects I haven't considered. And of course, we need to get industrial and especially agricultural use under control if we want to actually solve the problem.

These ideas are good on paper, and are certainly in use in many places, but the goal (not to impact low income residents too much) is not always met. For instance, let's say a household can use X gallons for low cost. If there are two people there, they each get X/2 low-cost gallons. Now let's say that due to job loss, kids / siblings / friends move in. The amount of low-cost gallons doesn't change, but more people are using those gallons. This means they will move to higher tiers much sooner, paying more per gallon. These people, who live together to save cost, are more negatively impacted by tiered pricing than middle-class or better households. 

 

[StruggleBus 3922]

31 minutes ago, Parliament said:

 

 

 

 

 

Ag has a ways to go for sure, but we're continually getting better. One way is subsurface drip irrigation. Farmers can irrigate without water ever seeing daylight. It's rather expensive, but saves a LOT of water. Crop yields will go up as well.

 

Many plains States have restrictions on how much water you can apply to crops. Nebraska does a very good job with it. Texas...not so much. Or not when I lived there.

 

ETA

Golf courses are worse. You can't feed people with bentgrass.

 

 

 

Many of the golf courses in SA use shit water to irrigate. Frankly, the city courses were kept in much better shape once they started doing that.

[Post Oak 20068]

Municipalities need to be more stringent when it comes to development.  No more huge swaths of lawns.  Plant natives and more drought tolerant grasses.

Plus they should require grey water systems.  You should be required to use your water twice.

Also people watering in the middle of the day need to be fined.

Edited June 24, 2020 by Post Oak

[Mighty fine 169]

 
El Paso has the largest inland desalination plant in the world.
https://www.epwater.org/our_water/water_resources/desalination

One distinction on this: El Paso is brackish groundwater desalination. With brackish desal, your going on the order of 5000 mg/l to less than 1000 mg/l of total dissolved solids typically using membrane filtration, freshwater blending, or a combination of both.

With seawater desal, your looking at going from 35,000 mg/l to less than 1000 mg/l tds with your treatment system. That additional level of treatment compounds both your capital and operations cost. Corpus is looking at seawater desal, but it's some expensive water.

[Okie State 3687]

Maybe people will stop watering their lawns everyday, or during a rainstorm, or at Noon when it all evaporates, or when the wind is blowing 25 mph, or have them spraying into the street, or leave broken heads flooding the sidewalk.

 

 

[totallynotabuttpirate 5294]

14 hours ago, High Plains Drifter said:

 

This hits close to home. Earlier this year I had to drill my water well deeper. Had to go an additional 300 ft down to get 15 gal/min. When I bought my place 15 years ago, I was getting 10 gal/min.

Looking to build on some land in the next 2-3 years and this is my fear. Thinking I'll just have them drill an extra 200-300ft just to be safe. 

Do you have a storage tank or just the pressure tank? 

[Parliament 13979]

 

 

 

"totallynotabuttpirate" userid="3060"] Looking to build on some land in the next 2-3 years and this is my fear. Thinking I'll just have them drill an extra 200-300ft just to be safe. 

Do you have a storage tank or just the pressure tank? 

 

Uh...phrasing

 

 

[Chet Steadman 940]

3 hours ago, Nivek said:

That’s amazing.  If any of you have the 60 Minutes app they did a great piece about this a few years ago   

 

[totallynotabuttpirate 5294]

25 minutes ago, Parliament said:

 

 

 

 

 

Uh...phrasing

 

 

Nah, I bet I could drill 300+ feet in your mom. 

[SimonBolivar 10648]

3 hours ago, Okie State said:

Maybe people will stop watering their lawns everyday, or during a rainstorm, or at Noon when it all evaporates, or when the wind is blowing 25 mph, or have them spraying into the street, or leave broken heads flooding the sidewalk.

 

 

Or at all

[Nivek 16643]

Another thing you might notice when you drive around is the height of fire hydrants and if they have exposed piping which was originally underground. 

[Mighty fine 169]

That's a separate issue. With subsidence, the consolidation is happening in the dewatered formation, so generally the elevation drop is constant across a local area.

[Nivek 16643]

One more thing, from the USGS picture you can see that the rates of subsidence are changing from ~.14 ft/yr  (1988-2008) to about 0.4ft/yr (2008-2016).

 

[gmr548 16253]

These ideas are good on paper, and are certainly in use in many places, but the goal (not to impact low income residents too much) is not always met. For instance, let's say a household can use X gallons for low cost. If there are two people there, they each get X/2 low-cost gallons. Now let's say that due to job loss, kids / siblings / friends move in. The amount of low-cost gallons doesn't change, but more people are using those gallons. This means they will move to higher tiers much sooner, paying more per gallon. These people, who live together to save cost, are more negatively impacted by tiered pricing than middle-class or better households. 
 

Yeah, I thought about that too. You could base the tiers on household size as well, but now you have to verify that for every utility account. Maybe you just set that threshold so high that it's daily needs for like 10 people. But then what are we really saving? I honestly don't know on that last question. It could still be worth it. Or not.

[Okie State 3687]

Or at all

Baby steps

[High Plains Drifter 10915]

8 hours ago, totallynotabuttpirate said:

Looking to build on some land in the next 2-3 years and this is my fear. Thinking I'll just have them drill an extra 200-300ft just to be safe. 

Do you have a storage tank or just the pressure tank? 

 

Just the pressure tank. Which worked fine up until there was no more water.