PALM SPRINGS – Desert Water Agency may soon charge customers tiered rates, where prices change between ranges of water use, said Craig Ewing, the agency’s board president, during Saturday’s Water Conservation Workshop in Palm Springs.
The water utility serves customers in Palm Springs, Desert Hot Springs and Cathedral City.
A number of water agencies in the Coachella Valley have already adopted tiered rates, including the Coachella Valley Water District, Mission Springs Water District, and the cities of Indio and Coachella.
“Price is our rate structure, which can be used to promote conservation,” Ewing said. “While there are restrictions on how we price water and how much we can use water rates to regulate behavior, I believe that it is the most efficient and effective tool … because it preserves peoples’ ability to choose how they use water.”
The Desert Water Agency currently uses commodity rates, where customers are charged the fixed costs of maintaining the water and the variable costs of increased usage.
Zoned rates are surcharges to areas that are more expensive to serve, such as mountain residences and businesses to which water must be pumped uphill.
Tiered rates send a much stronger price signal to customers about water use, and are intended to get customers to consider reducing their water consumption, Ewing said.
Most programs establish low, middle, moderately high, and extremely high tiers of water usage that attempt to keep customers close to the old, commodity rate.
But stray into the higher tiers and you’ll pay a high waste penalty – the difference between the tiered and commodity rate – that tends to make customers rethink their water use, Ewing said.
The Desert Water Agency’s board last considered tiered rates seriously in 2010 but decided against them.
“I’ve given hard thought (to) tiered rates — trying to understand it as best I can,” he said. “And I’m not going to speak for the board, but hold onto your seats.”
Full story by Dave Nyczepir at mydesert.com.
