How Conservation Helps Keep Water Costs Down.
A simple question fueled much of the customer frustration: “Why am I paying more for using less?” Efforts to answer this question have often omitted a critical point: Although water rates will continue to rise over time, conservation will help keep those rates as low as possible.
Using less water keeps those costs down over time.
By stretching the lifespan of supply sources, water agencies can avoid or delay the costs of securing new supplies; building and maintaining new infrastructure; and treating more water and wastewater.
Those savings are passed on to customers.
Gilbert and its ratepayers have avoided just under $341 million in water and wastewater treatment expenses.
Thanks to conservation, Gilbert customers pay rates that are 5.8 percent lower than they would be without conservation.
Because the community conserved, a single-family household’s average bill in 2012 was 47 percent lower than it would have been – a saving of $596 per year.
Successful sustainable water management and drought preparedness will clearly require more than creative conservation programs.
Future droughts will require even more savings in urban areas.