[ghshephard]

Why would 736 gallons of water use per day almost make you sick? Presumably the water board continues to charge very little money for water, and so people use it accordingly. Increase the cost of water, people stop using it as much. Increase it enough, and people will decide they no longer need emerald green lawns, and, hell, maybe they will have make big sacrifices and put a nozzle on their hose when watering their car.

I've never understood why the California water boards don't just using pricing as a mechanism to moderate people's water use.

[afafsd]

Here in Melbourne, water is priced on a tiered basis. 0.23 cents per litre for the first 440 litres per day (averaged over the quarter), 0.27 cents per litre for the next 440 litres a day, and 0.41 cents per litre beyond that. Plus a flat fee of about $100 a quarter.

If I used 736 gallons a day I'd be paying... hmmm, six bucks a day for water. Actually that's not that bad, I pay more than that for coffee.

[ghshephard]

Another nice thing about Australia - some areas have "Dual Flush" toilets - that allow you to use a different flush for solid waste - 6 liters/flush and 4 liters/flush.

I'm interested in what you pay for water - The ceiling price on water "creation" (not including distribution) for countries near oceans with access to cheap energy (And Australia, for better or worse, has access to a LOT of cheap coal energy) - should be around $0.50/cubic meter according to this DBO (Design-Build-Operate) project in Singapore that Hyflux's SingSpring plant is going to deliver.

http://www.waterworld.com/articles/2013/09/singapore-s-secon...

A Cubic Meter = 1000 liters, so that should be 50 cents / 1000 or 0.05 cents/liter.

That would suggest that either Desalination has jumped ahead of what other sources in Australia cost, and Australia just needs to get desalination plants online, or, more likely, the bulk of the cost of water (in your case, 70-90%), comes from things like distribution, and not water generation.

[jfmiller28]

Water in SoCal _is_ very expensive. The problem is that by the time you make it expensive enough for the country club set to need to conserve, the rest of us can't afford to flush the toilet. There are solutions, but billionaires with green lawns while low-income workers are loosing service just doesn't work.

[burkaman]

Couldn't they simply charge a normal rate for the first 50 or so gallons, and then a "drought rate" for anything beyond that?

[DanBC]

You have dual charges. Domestic use is given one rate. Commercial ise is given another rate.

[sehr]

Palm Springs area water does not come from the same place as SD/LA etc..

IIRC, most of the drinking water comes from the local groundwater, and nearly all of the ag water comes from the Colorado like in the Imperial Valley