USA Today - Water Rate Study

This week USA Today posted a story about rising water rates throughout the US.  The increases (on a percentage basis) are very large in some cities.  It would also be interesting to see what those changes were on an absolute basis - if your water bill is $20 to start with then raising it to $40 is a 100% increase, but still a pretty small price to pay for having water come out of a pipe in your house whenever you want it.  This is a pretty gross generalization, but it looks to me like the systems with the largest cost increases are concentrated in older eastern cities where they have probably been hit with large bills for major system upgrades to old water system infrastructure or in rapidly growing western cities that might be paying, or preparing to pay, for expensive new supplies to meet surging demands (I'm looking at you San Diego or possibly Atlanta on both counts).

The article does a pretty good job of describing the paradox of conservation with utilities - when you conserve the fixed costs of running the utility are spread over fewer units so the cost per unit increases.  This is especially prevalent in water utilities that often recover a significant portion of fixed costs with variable revenue sources.

I had a thought while reading the discussion of how many utilities are facing high costs from past borrowing to pay for infrastructure upgrades, system expansions, costs of compliance with new regulations, etc.  Did some of them possibly overestimate the revenue they would take in in future years when they had to payback those bonds, either by assuming continued expansion of their connections or that rates of household consumption would level off rather than declining?  I don't doubt that many of the upgrades that were done were necessary, but maybe they would have scheduled the work over a different time frame if they had more reasonable expectations for future revenue streams.  Or tried a bit harder to find ways to curb costs for the needed work.

Thanks to Val Little at WaterCASA for tipping me off to this story.

Latest Installment in the Painted Hills Follies

Let's see if we can figure out what's wrong with this article.  In paragraph 4 it says:

The county approved development plans for the 284 acres of scenic Painted Hills property just west of the city limits, but the supervisors didn't want the site developed, so they asked the city to deny water service to the property.

So the county asks the city to save them from a bad decision - see the county voters approved bond funds that would enable the county to buy this parcel of land and preserve it as open space.  But when the owners wouldn't sell to the county, the county decided they could wait them out.  But somebody else came in and offered more money for the parcel, expecting to develop it.

The city instituted a new policy that was used to deny water for the development, but ran into other problems when the developer sought a different remedy.  They are currently in negotiations with the property owner to do a swap that will provide them with a develop-able parcel of land elsewhere and permit preservation of the Painted Hills parcel.  You can find info on the city's water policy referenced here and here.

But back to the current article.  At the end of the article are a couple of really nice comments from the County Administrator, Chuck Huckleberry:

Huckelberry wants the board to ask the city to change its water service policy to provide service to properties like Marrs'.
"The presently adopted Tucson Water policy does not support rational regional planning for water service," Huckelberry said in the memo.

Guess it really pays to stay on the good side of our county administrator.  If I can paraphrase something a former president said recently - it takes some real brass to encourage the city to use their new policy to prevent development in one location then come back and say that said policy prevents rational regional planning when it stands in the way of a particular development you do want to see go forward.  Is it any wonder people in this town have so little respect for our local governments?

Here It Is!

If you remember waaaay back in April, I posted about a new law that had just been passed by the Arizona legislature that would make it very difficult to establish in-stream flow rights in Arizona.  At that point the bill was on its way to the governor's desk, where it would shortly be signed into law.

Well on Aug. 3 that new law went into effect and pretty soon Arizona Dept. of Water Resources had posted their guidance on implementing the law and a link to download the new in-stream flow application form.  They can be found here.

Now you might think this would be pretty much a tempest in a teapot, after all the opportunities to appropriate surface water in Arizona are effectively pretty limited at present.  And experience has shown that the most effective means of protecting in-stream flows around here are by having the most senior rights on the downstream end of the river system (see SRP).

But what this means is that our state government does not believe in the value of maintaining environmental flows in rivers (case in point) and wishes to protect existing "uses" of water from the threat of "non-users" or should I say "non-economic-benefit-providing users".  And by economic benefit I of course mean the kind of economic benefits that flow to highly favored entities among our state legislature.

New Website from Nature Conservancy

I received an email earlier this week announcing a new website that has been set up by the Nature Conservancy, called the Great Rivers Partnership.  Here's what it is about according to their email:

We’re excited to announce the launch of the The Nature Conservancy’s Great Rivers website http://greatriverspartnership.org/, a place where anyone whose life or livelihood is enriched by rivers can learn how we can all work together to protect these waterways.  The Nature Conservancy’s Great River Partnership convenes scientists, industry leaders, government and non government agencies, and others to exchange resources and find shared, pragmatic solutions that will support sustainable management and development of whole river systems.

As you well know, when a large river is healthy a diverse community of plants, animals, people and their industries can thrive. Everything that happens in and around a river system affects us all and the positive benefits are many. These waterways ensure power to large cities, drinking water to millions and transportation of crucial goods. They support vital ecosystems that fuel fisheries, enrich the soil and provide natural flood management.

 Sounds like some good ideas we can all support.  I'm a strong supporter of the model for conservation that the Nature Conservancy follows and I'm hopeful this website will prove to be a great resource for ideas that support that model.  Check it out when you have a chance.

Oh and there's a video you can check out too:

Is ADWR Impotent or Just Arizona Water Law?

From today's AZ Daily Star, a piece by Tony Davis about Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR) recent decision to approve the water supply for a very large new development in the Sierra Vista area.  For a little background on water issues in this part of Southeast Arizona check out my previous posts here and here.

Before I take a look at what this decision means I have to point out one erroneous statement from the article.  In the 3rd paragraph where it says "the department's decision gave a clear signal that it doesn't agree with the BLM's position opposing this pumping ..." that is not exactly a correct interpretation of what ADWR was saying (just based on what was reported here because ADWR doesn't have the decision posted to their website as of this afternoon, when I last checked).  As stated under the reasons cited for the ruling, ADWR simply doesn't have the authority to consider the effect of federal reserved rights on an application for a designation of adequate water supply where the application involves pumping groundwater and the federal reserved rights at issue are for surface water.  Arizona law doesn't recognize the connection between surface water and groundwater, except under very narrow circumstances.  And the criteria that ADWR can consider in evaluating the application are pretty clearly spelled out in the administrative code.  I've never noticed anything in there about compliance with federal law as it pertains to federal reserved water rights.

Putting on the promoter cap

It's that time again.  Time for me to extoll the virtues of Watershed Management Group and put out the call for donations for our summer fundraising campaign.  Full disclosure up front - I am the current vice-chair of the board of directors for WMG.  I don't make any money doing this, but I derive great personal satisfaction from watching their success.

If you haven't heard my spiel before, WMG is a fabulous non-profit based here in Tucson, Arizona that does work, currently throughout Arizona, in Southern California, in Sonora, Mexico, and in India and more recently in Burkina Faso.  Several of those locations are places where we have only begun working within the last two years, largely because of the strength of the individual donors who support the organization.  WMG has been growing by leaps and bounds because there are many people who support the great work they do, but also because there is such a huge need out there for growth of community-based programs to give people the tools they need to become better stewards of their resources.

That need continues to grow and hopefully WMG will be able to continue to grow to satisfy that need.  But they can only do it through the support of like-minded people.  And I'm certain there are at least a few of those people who read this blog.  And if you decide you like what the organization does and think there is a need for them to take on work in your community, send me a note or contact them through their website to see if there is an opportunity to expand there.  Or you can participate in one of their great training programs and learn how to do this sort of work yourself and teach others the same skills.

Check out this link for info on how to support WMG.  And if you are able to make a contribution this week a generous match from one of our donors will double your support.  Please do what you can.  Thanks.

RIP Elinor Ostrom, 1933-2012

The resource management/economics/political science community said farewell to one of the true innovative thinkers of the past century today.  Elinor Ostrom, Professor of Political Science at Indiana University, Nobel Prize winner in economics (the first woman to do so), and co-founder and Senior Research Fellow at the Vincent and Elinor Ostrom Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, passed away this morning in Bloomington, IN.

What is the interest of a hydrogeologist and attorney in a political scientist with a strong economics pedigree?  Well, the ground-breaking work that brought Dr. Ostrom into my realm of professional knowledge and a big part of what earned her a Nobel Prize was her work on defining the role of informal, local institutions in overcoming the Tragedy of the Commons.  One of her foundational research projects was on the importance of such institutions to effective governance of groundwater basins that functioned as common pool resources, but were managed through local informal institutions that prevented the theoretical negative outcome predicted by ToC.  This important observational work (Dr. Ostrom was well-known for taking theory and supporting/refuting it through actual field observations) has informed many of my views on the preferred methods of governance for groundwater systems.  My own career owes a huge debt to her work.

Her brilliance will live on in her work and the countless academics and practitioners who have followed in her footsteps.  Farewell.