Call off the Water Nannies!

Micha Gisser has an excellent opinion piece on the Albuquerque-Bernalillo Water Authority’s power grab in today’s Albuquerque Journal
Among his more salient points is the fact that from 1994 to 2006 the price of water, adjusted for inflation, increased by from 35 to 45 percent, thus causing consumers to reduce consumption. Presumably, if water is scarce and getting scarcer, this trend will continue with or without these ridiculous regulations.
Gisser also notes that installing rain water collection systems is simply not economically viable. Since the variable charge per unit of water is not in excess of $2 or $3. Consequently, at the most, the annual saving for the household for the required equipment will be $50. Assuming that the gutters-and-barrel structure has a lifetime of 20 years, at a 5 percent annual interest the break-even investment is approximately $625.
Concludes Gisser, ” Let the price of water— reflecting all production costs, including the cost of the new conversion dam and the rental cost of water rights— guide users on how much water to consume. People do not need water nannies, they can decide for themselves how to conserve toilet water and if and when to replace their lawns by desert shrubs and invest in rain barrels.”