The Downside of Water Conservation: More Expensive H2O, Slashed Revenues

We all know we need to conserve water. The Southern and Southwestern parts of the United States are in the midst of a pretty good drought and Australia is coming around to the fact that the rains aren’t coming back anytime soon. Himalayan glaciers are melting, threatening the water sources for a good chunk of the world’s population and it’s not a stretch to say that the next big wars will be fought over H2O.

So it may come as a bit of a shock that some small municipalities are freaking out over how much less water their customers are using.

The problem for them is that the reduced consumption means reduced incoming revenue. Or as one water works czar Cliff Curtis says:

“Conservation is killing us.”

The city of Toronto, Canada has almost a billion dollars in repair work now the books but only saw revenue of $604M last year. Other Canadian regions are seeing the same problems as more citizens use less water and install water saving devices like low flow toilets.

To combat the budget shortfalls water czars and boards are being forced to raise water prices.

No one said it’s going to be easy to ease ourselves into a greener tomorrow and there will most certainly be hiccups and bumps along the way. Paying more for our water even as we use less seems to be one thing that we’re all going to have to deal with at some time. It’s certainly better than using up all the world’s clean freshwater in a frenzy of consumption.

Link [TheStar]

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