November 29, 2005
Star-Telegram Editorial

A considerable amount of hyperbole accompanies a recent trend in municipal governance to reverse what has been common practice: giving a volume discount to big water users.

Flower Mound recently decided to lower rates for customers who keep usage down and raise it for those who choose not to do so. Mansfield is considering a similar strategy.

Though this is not a trend that any but the most frugal of water customers will particularly relish, like it or not, it's an idea that will become widely adopted.

Federal and state regulations regarding water usage and conservation are becoming more onerous even as the population increases. It's also obvious what the two most visibly wasteful items in today's urban/suburban society are: big, water-slurping lawns and automobiles -- the latter a topic for another day.

Thankfully, water -- unlike petroleum -- is a renewable if undependably available resource. Even when abundant, it must be collected, stored, treated and pumped to consumers with systems that are expensive to build and maintain.

Fortunately, there's enough H2O to go around -- if consumers maintain a reasonable discipline.

The trend enforces that discipline through one of the most reliable of economic devices: price. The big user pays more per gallon, the prudent less as a reward.

Over time (in theory, at least), cost-rationing will result in development of water-saving appliances, fewer lush lawns and more use of hardy native plants and innovative applications of less thirsty xeriscape yards, in tandem with tricks like storage of roof runoff water.

(See Phoenix or Flagstaff as extreme role models.)

The prudent homeowner will be mulling those ideas in advance, which is exactly the intent of price-rationing strategies.

Don't like the idea? Then keep turning on the sprinkler system -- and open your wallet.