Steve's Blog

Why would I try and save water?

I hate paying my water bill. I’ve just paid my tri-annual ‘Services Account’. Although I don’t mind paying for the water. There is no financial incentive for me to bother to try and save water.

The cost of installing and plumbing up a rainwater tank vs. what is available in the form of rebates is a joke. The out of pocket charges are huge. The ‘Services Charges’ remain the same, and the drop in town supplied water charges is negligible.

The government offered a $2000 cash back grant for fitting an LGP system to a car. With some installations only costing $2500 it was only a $500 out of pocket expense. The price of LPG is a lot cheaper than petrol so there are some substantial on going savings to be made too.

Yet try and save water a ‘precious resource’ and there is no financial benefit to be gained, only extra expense.

The proportion of this bill that is water usage is less than 14%. If I went all out and cut my water usage by 50%, it would save me a whopping $17.16. That’s a lot of hard work to save $1.08 per week.

Is it realistic to be able to save 20% of my water consumption? It’ll take some effort, water saving shower roses, shorter showers, more limited use of the dishwasher, install a rainwater tank etc. But why? It’ll save me less than $2.00 / month. At $0.50c per week it’s going to take a long time to pay the water tank off. (Yes, I’m bad because I still have free flowing shower heads, but for $0.50c per week, why would I bother changing them?)

If I went to the other extreme and doubled my water consumption the financial penalty isn’t all that harsh. An extra $39.86 would make this bill a total of $307.16 with water usage making up for 25% of it.

Here’s the list of charges that make up my current bill:

Service Charges:
Sewer Service Availability Charge – Residential:$ 139.66
Water Service Availability Charge – Residential: $51.67
Annual Waterways Charge: $38.88

Water Usage (I used 40KL):
17.00KL @ $0.8335 $14.17
23.00KL @ $0.9966 $22.92
Total $37.09

A grand total of: $267.30

Hardly a user pays system and it’s not a fair system.

Why does the family of 6 people up the street pay the same ‘Sewer Service Availability Charge’ as I do? If they’re using more water and putting more down the sewer than I am, why aren’t they paying more for the disposal? More toilet flushes, more clothes washing, more showers etc. They’re adding more to the cost of running sewerage pumps, extra electrical and maintenance cost, and more water to be treated.

It’s not fair for Landlords (and no, I’m not a Landlord). A tenant only pays for water used, not for it’s disposal. Why not?

Why can’t the cost of disposal be incorporated into the cost of supply or if kept separate, be a $/KL supplied rate. If the regional average consumption is say 45KL per billing cycle why not charge $139.66 / 45KL = $3.10c / KL for sewage?

Something would have to be worked out for vacant blocks because there is still an extortion charge for having the service available. (Even though Electricity and Phone companies don’t charge a supply fee until you’re actually connected, the Water companies can still extort payment, and they wont disconnect a vacant block from the system either).

If I was paying $0.9966 / KL for water usage and $3.10 / KL for disposal, a total of $4.10KL I might seriously think about saving water as it will have a real impact on the bill and not a measly $0.50 / week.

Tags: availability, service, water, waterways charge, wester water

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