Water: making waste hurt.

The following was published in the Cranbrook Daily Townsman, Wednesday April 21, 2010.

Congratulations to Cranbrook City Council for their recent signing of the Columbia Basin Water Smart Charter. Setting a target of reducing domestic water use by 20% by 2015 is an admirable start, one that everyone should support. Just drilling a new well to get at even more water is not the answer.

Extra kudos to Mayor Scott Manjak for having the cahones to go further and suggest he’s willing to look at water meters. To say that’s not a popular political move is a vast understatement. However, there is simply no other way to reliably reduce water consumption. A study from Ontario found an average reduction in water use of roughly 30% after meters were installed. There’s your target and then some, right there.

We are water hogs. A report out of University of Victoria in 2001 compared Canada with 28 other countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). For water consumption, Canada came in 28th, ahead of only the United States. From 1980 to 2000, water consumption in Canada rose over 25%, more than 5 times the combined OECD rate.

The daily amount of water needed for consumption, basic sanitation, food preparation and bathing is estimated between 60 and 80 litres per household. Let’s be generous and round that up to an even 100L. Average Canadian household water use is well over 300L. Per day. (figures sourced from the Program on Water Governance at the University of British Columbia.)

Meters should be seen more as incentive than tax. I would not support a move to metering strictly for cash grab. In fact having them installed for 6 months or so before any charges would help people learn about their consumption and find ways to reduce it.

Most importantly, I suggest that a certain base volume, rated on a daily average, would carry no charge. Don’t call it free – there most certainly is a cost to all of us for any water use. But in recognition of our requirements for health and sanitation, a basic daily allotment should be provided. Given the numbers above, 100L might be a reasonable domestic number. The number of people per residence would also be factored in. Above that, charges start applying and rise steeply to curb waste.

Marq de Villiers wrote the highly acclaimed book Water in the late 1990s. On the topic of meters, he wrote, “It is important to signal water’s value and to price it so that waste hurts.”

But are water meters just another tax grab? I wouldn’t support them if they were. And here we need to be careful. de Villiers notes bad experiences from Great Britain where cost of water rose over 100% following privatization of water companies. Corporate profits rose almost 700%, with little re-investment into infrastructure. Privatization of our water (and it most certainly is our water) should not occur. I envision a non-profit structure where water charges cover incurred costs of managing the accounts, but any surplus should be re-invested into community environmental programs that encourage water conservation and rehabilitate local waterways.

Domestic water use is not the only issue. For meaningful conservation, industrial use also must come down. Thermal power (generation by fossil fuel and nuclear) is far and away the largest industrial consumer in Canada, followed by manufacturing, according to the Program on Water Governance at UBC. But what we can individually control is a good place to start: our own taps and toilets. Measuring just how much is going down the drain would open many eyes.

Disclosure: I am an Area C resident so would not be directly affected by a requirement by City of Cranbrook to install water meters. However, like most Area C dwellers, I work in the City of Cranbrook and have a vested interest in the city, its environment and its economy. Though my home is on a private well, I support water meters for rural residents such as myself. Whether we draw water from city treatment reservoirs or underground aquifers, it’s all water, it’s all connected and it all needs to be used judiciously and wisely.