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Show SUMMARY OF FINDINGS other outdoor activities such as washing cars, and seasonal enterprises such as food processing. During winter months, landscape irrigation and other residential activities such as car washing cease. Thus, winter water usage is roughly equivalent to summer water usage minus outdoor water using activities. In other words, winter water usage among residential customers provides a rough approximation of indoor water usage. Most of the utilities that sell both water and wastewater services in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area incorporate this approximation in the billing for wastewater services. The pricing of wastewater offers one convenient opportunity for seasonal water pricing. One major seasonal rate form is the " base- extra" method in which average off- peak water usage is considered " base" water usage. Water consumption in excess of the base, during the peak period, is priced at a higher rate. Hence, the predominant wastewater pricing mechanism could be utilized to implement seasonal rates. The predominant mechanism could also be utilized to develop uniform pricing mechanisms. Many utilities index wastewater bills to water consumption. For example, the wastewater bill might be $ 3.00 per 1,000 gallons of wastewater, with wastewater assumed to average 70 percent of monthly water usage. This rate structure clearly links the wastewater bill to water consumption and, if water conservation is the objective, sends a clear price- quantity message. The data maintained by CUWCD service area purveyors could easily be synthesized to calculate the average annual percentage linkages. Care would, of course, need to be exercised to ensure that any resultant price response is factored into the billing determinants used to calculate rates. IRRIGATION WATER PRICING Critics of federal water projects have proposed wide ranging ideas concerning pricing applicable to water from federal projects. One such idea was included directly into the CUP Completion Act. The Act limits CUWCD's ability to sell water to irrigators growing certain crops by imposing surcharges on CUWCD water used to irrigate " surplus" crops on land covered by acreage limitation programs. This legislatively serves to reduce the possibility of " double dipping" whereby farmers use " subsidized" water to grow " subsidized" crops or crops that U. S. taxpayers are paying farmers elsewhere not to grow. Indirectly, this legislatively " conserves" water by placing a hierarchy of value on crops and, to some extent, redirecting water to " higher value" uses of water. 7 Historically and currently, the CUWCD policies have been constrained by laws governing the way that water is priced to irrigation, and municipal and industrial 7 Reisner, Marc and Sarah Bates. Overtapped Oasis: Reform or Revolution for Western Water. Washington, D. C.: Island Press. 1990. Page 126. ES- 27 Executive Summary |
