Case for water meters is too strong to resist

BY MURRAY GIBB

OPINION: WITH planners looking to balance future supply with demand for water in the Wellington region, debate on the merits of metering and volumetric charging has risen again. Alternative suggestions put up over the past week include installation of a desalination plant, fixing leaky pipes, compulsory greywater systems and subsidised rainwater tanks.

Peak summer demand requires water suppliers each year to juggle matters to ensure sufficient water is available to get through dry periods. Ideas to moderate demand are rolled out, including education to increase awareness, and controls and bans on non-essential high-use activities.

By and large, communities are comfortable with such policies during dry periods. Others that meet public acceptance include encouragement in the use of efficient technologies, such as dual- flush toilets, along with "water-efficient" appliances, collection and use of rainwater and grey water at individual dwellings.

Some water conservation policies are not so popular. Perhaps because it is so abundant here, New Zealanders feel they have a right to unlimited high- quality water.

A proposal for low-flow shower heads, for example, was quickly shelved during the last election and metering and volumetric charging is equally, if not more, unpopular in some quarters.

The fact of the matter is, however, that, where other methods of managing water use may be moderately successful, metering and volumetric charging is the most effective tool to change water use behaviour. Consistently, both locally and internationally where metering and volumetric charges have been introduced, peak demand has been reduced by between 20 and 40 per cent.

In Nelson, for example, when this regime was introduced several years ago, peak summer demand reduced by 37 per cent. These sorts of results demonstrate that, when forced to confront our water usage based on a direct cost, there are major savings to be achieved.

Economically it is more efficient to manage demand than simply increase supply. Water supplies, along with waste and stormwater management systems are big-ticket items.

For the period from 2006 to 2016, New Zealand's 73 territorial authorities allowed for more than $22 billion in capital and operational expenditure across these "three waters". Despite this, plans to introduce internationally agreed standards for drinking water quality were recently parked because smaller communities argued they could not afford to upgrade their infrastructure.

Cost/benefit analyses of metering and charging indicate that associated capital and operating expenditure produces a high rate of return. Tauranga City Council has reported that the introduction of metering delayed estimated capital expenditure of $75 million on water supply investments for about 10 to 12 years.

Local authorities also face significant cost in removing and processing wastewater. There is a directly proportional relationship between the volume of water used by household residents and the volume of wastewater required to be removed and processed. Reducing demand for water reduces the volume of wastewater required to be transported and processed.

MORE recently the Tauranga council estimated $30m to $40m of wastewater treatment investment could be deferred for up to eight years. These savings resulted from the $9.7m cost of installing metering in every household. These are compelling numbers in anyone's language but metering has other advantages.

Because its price is not readily visible in rates demands, public awareness and appreciation of the value and cost of the supply of water is low. Some see it as being exclusively a public good. It isn't. While water is free, reticulated water systems are anything but. They are seriously expensive and bring both public and private benefit. They also need to be paid for.

When the price and use of water are directly connected, as they are for other private goods, the international and local experience is that attitudes and behaviours consistently and permanently change.

How frugal would we be if the cost of fuel was bulked up in uniform annual charges against private property, oil companies were recompensed by territorial authorities and motorists filled up at the pump at no charge?

Looking to the future it is more than likely that, where there is pressure on water supplies, statutory water management bodies will require evidence of demand management as conditions on consents. In a country with abundant water this is not just fanciful. Environment Waikato is proposing a variation to its regional plan requiring water management plans to be supplied by applicants seeking water takes for municipal supply.

Another consideration is how the application of uniform annual charges to reticulated domestic dwellings produces inequitable economic outcomes. High- volume users are being cross-subsidised by low-use householders.

On environmental, economic and social equity grounds, the case for metering and volumetric charging is compelling.

* Murray Gibb is chief executive of Water New Zealand, a not-for-profit sector organisation focusing on the sustainable management and promotion of the water environment.

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