Highway robbery

By Timothy Allinson, P.E.,
Murray Co., Long Beach, Calif.

Last October I wrote a column titled “Confessions of a water waster” in which I described my local water utility’s new tiered water billing program. The program, I originally thought, was intended to penalize water wasters financially and generate conservational behavior as a result. I have since learned that the billing structure is a lot more ominous than I was first led to believe; it is starting to feel like Chinatown all over again.

By way of history, the city in which I live was nothing but orange groves until the 1990s. Then a housing boom hit Southern Orange County (Calif.) and housing tracts went up at an enormous rate. These tracts all have home owners associations (HOAs) that are responsible for the common area landscaping, among other things.

When I wrote about the Moulton Niguel Water District’s (MNWD’s) new tiered billing structure, I wrote about it from a personal “single family residence” perspective. I found it interesting and intelligent, but I was yet to discover the fly in the ointment. To rehash, the new tiered billing structure assigns a billing unit (BU) budget to each customer, based on population, landscaped area and weather data. One BU is 100 cubic feet.

If a customer exceeds their budget, there are penalties, as follows:

• Efficient (within budget) $1.54
• Inefficient (+10% of budget) $2.75
• Excessive (+20% of budget) $5.51
• Wasteful (>120% of budget) $11.02

As you can see, the penalty is significant if you exceed 120% of your water budget. For a single family residence, where behavior and irrigation are fairly easy to control, this is not unreasonable. But when it comes to HOAs that have large amounts of landscaping, this billing structure takes on a whole new meaning.

I happen to be the president of my HOA, so I am intimately familiar with all of the goings on in the Community, including the utility bills. When the MNWD’s new billing program came into effect July 1, I saw our water bill skyrocket from $2,838 to $7,332 every two months. I was certain this had to be a correctable mistake.

Our Community has five water meters, which I find strange, as it has always been my experience that one customer gets one water meter, or maybe two at the most for redundant services. I don’t know why there are five meters. It probably has something to do with the fact that the Community was built in three phases.

A review of our bills revealed that three of our meters were dramatically over their water budget and two were dramatically under budget. One of the five serves the pool house; this, of course, was one of the two that were under budget. The other meter that was under budget serves an undeveloped slope that represents 60% of the landscaped area. This area, due to its size and rugged landscaping, is easy to water efficiently.

The remaining three water meters serve the landscaping for all of the small, fragmented sections of grass and hedges that weave in between the various residences. They include hundreds of areas that have only nine square feet of landscaping between driveways, walkways and curbs. These areas are impossible to water efficiently, since there is always overspray from the surface irrigation. If all of these areas were changed to drip irrigation, the efficiency would improve, but this would be a massive undertaking.

Here’s where the subject “highway robbery” comes into play. If all five meters were combined as one, totaling their water budgets and usage, our water bill would reduce to $4,089. This is still a dramatic increase from $2,838 with the old non-tiered billing system, but it represents a reasonable penalty for the inherent inefficiency of the irrigation system. However, the MNWD refuses to total the meters this way. “One meter, one bill” is their mantra, whereas I believe “one customer one bill” would be fairer. But they wouldn’t make as much money that way.

So here’s what I hope to do. Since two of our five meters (meters 1 and 4) are the prime culprits of inefficiency, and one meter (meter 5) has a great deal of spare water budget, the goal is to backfeed meters 1 and 4 from meter 5, thereby taking advantage of the spare water budget and shedding the penalties we are receiving. Accomplishing this will be no small task, since we have no drawings of the irrigation system, but I believe it can be done without too much effort. If achieved, it will reduce our water bills by nearly 50%.

The saddest part of this whole saga is that not a drop of water will be saved in this process; we will merely be getting around the penalties connected with the billing system. True, it would be better to change the irrigation to a drip system, but this would cost well in excess of $100,000 to achieve, and we don’t have the budget for that.

I’ve heard the rumor that voluntary conservation measures were reducing the revenues of the MNWD and putting the pensions of its staff in jeopardy. This new billing system has simultaneously promoted conservation and secured pensions for many years to come.

While this tale is very personal to my home district, my experience is that trends in the water industry tend to start in California, due to our desert environment, and move eastward. So don’t be surprised when this new water billing program shows up in your mailbox and that of your clients.

 

Timothy Allinson is a senior professional engineer with Murray Co., Mechanical Contractors, in Long Beach, Calif. He holds a bsme from Tufts University and an mba from New York University. He is a professional engineer licensed in both mechanical and fire protection engineering in various states, and is a leed accredited professional. Allinson is a past-president of aspe, both the New York and Orange County Chapters. He can be reached at laguna_tim@yahoo.com.