Editorial: Water plan flawed

The city can achieve its conservation goals in better ways than through imposing a tiered billing system.

When it comes to water rates, perhaps the city of Lawrence shouldn’t try to fix what isn’t broken.

The city is considering new billing models designed to encourage residents to use less water. Presently, residential rates for water and sewer service are $5.70 and $6.29 per 1,000 gallons. The proposed model would create three rates based on a customer’s level of consumption. The more a household uses, the higher the rates.

Customers who use significantly more water per month than the average household would be charged 10-15 percent more. Only water used over the high-use threshold would be charged at the higher rate.

The only problem with the tiered system is that if the higher rates actually accomplish the goal of reducing consumption — which has proved to be the case in other cities where such systems have been implemented — the city likely will have to increase base rates on everyone to make up for the lost revenue from a decline in consumption.

The city’s water utility was based on a financial model of consumption. But operational and infrastructure costs — not water volume — determine the utility’s financial operations, and those costs don’t go down just because consumption decreases.

“Conservation is good economically, and obviously environmentally, but in those areas where they’ve done that, the per-gallon rate tends to go up,” said Dave Wagner, the city’s director of utilities.

There’s nothing wrong with encouraging conservation. But there are other, more efficient ways to achieve that goal than a tiered system that, in an effort to punish the biggest users, winds up forcing everyone to pay more.

Besides, evidence shows that Lawrence residents are achieving conservation without the threat of penalties for excessive consumption. In the past decade, Lawrence’s residential water consumption has fallen by more than 20 percent. Usage has decreased from 67,000 gallons per residential account in 2005 to 55,000 gallons per residential account in 2015. That decline is the result of better awareness, increased appliance efficiencies and restrictions on watering during drought conditions.

Everyone should be concerned about water conservation. But changing the city’s current rate structure to increasingly penalize consumption seems like a risky strategy that is more likely to exacerbate the city’s water issues.