Water Gluttons Should pay more

6/5/09 - Water rates for the 1% largest water users should go up significantly
effective October 1st. The PSI committee of council, which I chair, requested the to be included in the proposed water rates for the coming year.
By charging higher rates for the extreme users, we help to discourage them from being water hogs and keep rates lower for everyone else.

4/24 - Update: - Council Committee requests staff to proceed to draft the ordinance necessary to increase the costs for the 1.7% of residential water customers who use at least 20,000 Gallons per month. Average usage is 6,000
Gallons per month. I am requesting that the water hog upcharge be used to help promote water conservation programs such as the efficient toilet rebate
program. This increase will likely not go into effect until October 1st.

3/24 - Post
A small number of homeowners use up to 30 times the water as the average homeowner. As water becomes a more valuable and limited resource, I have proposed an increase in water rates for single-family homeowners who use more
the 20,000 gallons a month. This is compares to 6,000 gallons for the average homeowner. The rate would continue to increase up to 35,000 gallons
a month or 6 times the average customer.

It is important to understand that Tampa Bay uses all the cheapest water which
is pumped from underground. All additional water costs between twice as much
for river water and 3.5 times as much for water from the desalination plant.
This means that as water use goes up, Tampa Bay Water builds ever more expensive facilities to capture, store and desal the water. EVERYONE PAYS MORE AS A RESULT.

One of the ways to control costs for everyone is to discourage the small number of water gluttons from using many times as much water as a normal family.