6 ms·

> Danes pay the highest water rates in Europe, at 6.33 Euros per 1,000 liters or 264 gallons (compare France at 3.35 Euros and Sweden at 2.73). According to SF

by aftbit 11y ago

> Danes pay the highest water rates in Europe, at 6.33 Euros per 1,000 liters or 264 gallons (compare France at 3.35 Euros and Sweden at 2.73). According to SFPUC[1] & WolframAlpha[2], the rate in a San Francisco multi-family is around €1.80/kL for the first ~8.5kL/month. This is exclusive of the meter flat rate and any other taxes and fees. Charging 3.5x as much for water makes a lot of things possible. 1: http://www.sfwater.org/index.aspx?page=169 http://www.sfwater.org/index.aspx?page=169 2: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=5.58%24%2F748+gal+to+eur%2Fkiloliter http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=5.58%24%2F748+gal+to+eu...

api_or_ipa 11y ago
In most parts of Vancouver, water is still free. We just installed water metres in some parts of the city a few years ago. We're incredibly fortunate to have a massive mountain range and water shed immediately north of the city that provides us with some of the best water I've ever drank.
- jpollock 11y ago
  That just means it is paid for from general property taxes, not that it is free. In other words it is a subsidy from apartment dwellers with no grass to single family home owners.
Dylan16807 11y ago
Note in particular that you can desalinate water forever at 1.5 euros per kiloliter.
- jsprogrammer 11y ago
  I doubt that a desalination plant can run on plastic currency, or that such plastic could run a plant 'forever'.
  - Dylan16807 11y ago
    I assure you, if you keep throwing in coins in proportion to the water you take, the well will never run dry (modulo some scaling delays). Am I missing a joke?
    - jsprogrammer 11y ago
      Nah, I must have missed yours.
    - jsprogrammer 11y ago
      Nah, I must have missed yours.
    - jsprogrammer 11y ago
      Nah, I must have missed yours.
revelation 11y ago
I'd rather have drinkable water than cheap water and having to buy plastic bottles for significantly higher expense.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
jhallenworld 11y ago
Water around Boston (in the MWRA) is expensive: the sewer bill is included and is paying for the Boston Harbor cleanup / Deer Island treatment plant: 7.58 Euros per 1000 liters. This is converted from $513.54 for 2629 CU. FT. from my last quarterly bill. Basically one year of water+sewer in a two-family house with all water saving features is higher than the monthly rental rate for a two-bedroom apartment. One more factoid: the pH of the water is 9.3: http://www.belmont-ma.gov/dpw-water-division/faq/what-is-the-ph-of-belmont%E2%80%99s-drinking-water http://www.belmont-ma.gov/dpw-water-division/faq/what-is-the... I'm sure this is to protect us from lead, but it makes the water gross.
- aftbit 11y ago
  That's a good point - I also completely excluded sewer prices, which are actually considerably higher than water prices. Warning: no data, just intuition, in the rest of this comment. I'm a bit confused by that, actually, since California is in a significant drought and there is a lot of pressure to get people to cut back on washing their cars and watering their lawns. I would imagine that, in a residential setting, roughly 100% of water consumed for purposes besides the external use that we're trying to reduce then goes into the sewer. So why don't we just increase water prices and cut sewer prices equivalently? You'd expect the average consumer's bill to go up only in proportion with the amount of externally used water that they "waste". One potential complication might be for houses with septic tanks, but those are probably fairly uncommon in the area served by SFPUC. Perhaps, as a utility, they're constrained to charge relative to their actual cost in those areas. Edit: retric - thanks, that makes sense. I'm a renter here, so I don't pay a water bill (except indirectly via rent).
  - Retric 11y ago
    Sewer is not tracked separately in most (all?) areas. It's just based off of water used.
    - knughit 11y ago
      Seattle tries to estimate sewer use by billing it based on extrapolation from winter water use (when lawn watering isn't happening)
disc 11y ago
Not to say your analysis is flawed, but SFPUC rounds everyone's water usage to the nearest 'unit' (748 gallons) meaning that anyone who uses less than 748 gallons/month is paying at least €8.05/kiloliter (based on my consistent $25/one-unit bill.) As a single guy, I consume nowhere near my allocated 748 gallons/month, meaning my effective rate is even higher.
- knughit 11y ago
  You don't use 25gal/day to shower and wash and toilet? Shower is 2gal/minute and toilet is 1gal/flush, or more.
  - ptaipale 11y ago
    You can take showers and use the toilet and spend less than that. My family's consumption is 105 litres (28 gallons) per person per day. And we don't really think about the water consumption but I think we use it abundantly; we do sports and naturally take daily showers, have sometimes guests who also use toilet, etc.
    - ameen 11y ago
      How do businesses deal with water usage in their premises? (Gyms, offices, etc with showers, etc). Is this something to consider whilst factoring in expenses?
      - ptaipale 11y ago
        Each facility of course has their own water contract, right? What we were talking about is the domestic use. I cycle to work, and it means that I take a shower in the morning at the office building, and another one in the evening back home. So one shower per day is included in the domestic consumption (for me, and for others who don't cycle but also take a daily shower at home). I don't think that's so different between U.S., Copenhagen or my place (Finland). It might be different in less modernist cultures where people don't have bathrooms of their own but go to communal baths -- for example, communities in East Karelia/Russia; there many people just bath twice a week in a public баня and that would surely show up in water consumption per person when measured per apartment. On the other hand, there you probably will see that water is not priced at cost and many many taps will leak a lot...
whyenot 11y ago
On the peninsula (Purissima Hills Water District) we pay about €1.49/kL for the same Hetch Hetchy water. The quality of San Francisco's water is pretty amazing. At home I measure a total dissolved solids of <35 ppm. Compare to San Jose municipal water with a TDS usually above 400 ppm (the value does jump around a lot depending on where SJ is getting its water from).
alkonaut 11y ago
Sweden has decent water even at the lower rates. For example, Salmon fishing is still popular in central Stockholm (salmon is really picky about water quality), and swimming is definitely possible in the central city there too. What the water costs only limits the water use, it doesn't change how much can be spent on water treatment and other projects, there is also tax money. Sweden and Denmark have very high taxes, it helps.
- null-object 11y ago
  As with so many other things, Swedes seem to be happy to persist the myth of superior drinking and bathing water which actually doesn't match the facts, at all. The water in central Stockholm is a slimy cocktail of raw sewage, localized heavy metals from old industries, algae and pesticides. These articles are unfortunately all in Swedish - swedes prefer to keep their bad news local: Raw sewage from new apartment buildings connected directly to one of the most popular bathing places in central Stockholm that ran out freely for at least three years: http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article12848092.ab http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article12848092.ab Farm organizations warning about swimming in Stockholm's water after rainfall: http://www.lantbruk.com/debatt/varfor-ska-jordbruket-sta-vid-skampalen http://www.lantbruk.com/debatt/varfor-ska-jordbruket-sta-vid... Raw sewage that has run directly out into bathing water in central Stockholm from an apartment house for the past 85 years: http://www.dn.se/sthlm/sa-mycket-bajsvatten-rinner-ut-i-stockholm/ http://www.dn.se/sthlm/sa-mycket-bajsvatten-rinner-ut-i-stoc... An article stating that the equivalent of 354 Olympic-sized swimming pools of raw sewage and polluted water gushes straight out into the middle of Stockholm's water every year: http://gamla.mitti.se/bajsvattnet-rinner-ratt-ut/ http://gamla.mitti.se/bajsvattnet-rinner-ratt-ut/ An article about the large scale of health problems following outbreaks of serious bacterial infections from tap water infected by raw sewage systematically entering drinking water without ultraviolet cleaning: http://www.dn.se/nyheter/sverige/manga-annu-sjuka-efter-parasitutbrott/ http://www.dn.se/nyheter/sverige/manga-annu-sjuka-efter-para... Heavy metals and other poisons in Stockholm's water: http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article10358091.ab http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article10358091.ab
  - gozo 11y ago

by aftbit 11y ago

api_or_ipa 11y ago

In most parts of Vancouver, water is still free. We just installed water metres in some parts of the city a few years ago. We're incredibly fortunate to have a massive mountain range and water shed immediately north of the city that provides us with some of the best water I've ever drank.

jpollock 11y ago
That just means it is paid for from general property taxes, not that it is free. In other words it is a subsidy from apartment dwellers with no grass to single family home owners.

Dylan16807 11y ago

Note in particular that you can desalinate water forever at 1.5 euros per kiloliter.

jsprogrammer 11y ago
I doubt that a desalination plant can run on plastic currency, or that such plastic could run a plant 'forever'.
- Dylan16807 11y ago
  I assure you, if you keep throwing in coins in proportion to the water you take, the well will never run dry (modulo some scaling delays). Am I missing a joke?
  - jsprogrammer 11y ago
    Nah, I must have missed yours.
  - jsprogrammer 11y ago
    Nah, I must have missed yours.
  - jsprogrammer 11y ago
    Nah, I must have missed yours.

revelation 11y ago

I'd rather have drinkable water than cheap water and having to buy plastic bottles for significantly higher expense.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

jhallenworld 11y ago

Water around Boston (in the MWRA) is expensive: the sewer bill is included and is paying for the Boston Harbor cleanup / Deer Island treatment plant: 7.58 Euros per 1000 liters. This is converted from $513.54 for 2629 CU. FT. from my last quarterly bill. Basically one year of water+sewer in a two-family house with all water saving features is higher than the monthly rental rate for a two-bedroom apartment. One more factoid: the pH of the water is 9.3: http://www.belmont-ma.gov/dpw-water-division/faq/what-is-the-ph-of-belmont%E2%80%99s-drinking-water http://www.belmont-ma.gov/dpw-water-division/faq/what-is-the... I'm sure this is to protect us from lead, but it makes the water gross.

aftbit 11y ago
That's a good point - I also completely excluded sewer prices, which are actually considerably higher than water prices. Warning: no data, just intuition, in the rest of this comment. I'm a bit confused by that, actually, since California is in a significant drought and there is a lot of pressure to get people to cut back on washing their cars and watering their lawns. I would imagine that, in a residential setting, roughly 100% of water consumed for purposes besides the external use that we're trying to reduce then goes into the sewer. So why don't we just increase water prices and cut sewer prices equivalently? You'd expect the average consumer's bill to go up only in proportion with the amount of externally used water that they "waste". One potential complication might be for houses with septic tanks, but those are probably fairly uncommon in the area served by SFPUC. Perhaps, as a utility, they're constrained to charge relative to their actual cost in those areas. Edit: retric - thanks, that makes sense. I'm a renter here, so I don't pay a water bill (except indirectly via rent).
- Retric 11y ago
  Sewer is not tracked separately in most (all?) areas. It's just based off of water used.
  - knughit 11y ago
    Seattle tries to estimate sewer use by billing it based on extrapolation from winter water use (when lawn watering isn't happening)

disc 11y ago

Not to say your analysis is flawed, but SFPUC rounds everyone's water usage to the nearest 'unit' (748 gallons) meaning that anyone who uses less than 748 gallons/month is paying at least €8.05/kiloliter (based on my consistent $25/one-unit bill.) As a single guy, I consume nowhere near my allocated 748 gallons/month, meaning my effective rate is even higher.

knughit 11y ago
You don't use 25gal/day to shower and wash and toilet? Shower is 2gal/minute and toilet is 1gal/flush, or more.
- ptaipale 11y ago
  You can take showers and use the toilet and spend less than that. My family's consumption is 105 litres (28 gallons) per person per day. And we don't really think about the water consumption but I think we use it abundantly; we do sports and naturally take daily showers, have sometimes guests who also use toilet, etc.
  - ameen 11y ago
    How do businesses deal with water usage in their premises? (Gyms, offices, etc with showers, etc). Is this something to consider whilst factoring in expenses?
    - ptaipale 11y ago
      Each facility of course has their own water contract, right? What we were talking about is the domestic use. I cycle to work, and it means that I take a shower in the morning at the office building, and another one in the evening back home. So one shower per day is included in the domestic consumption (for me, and for others who don't cycle but also take a daily shower at home). I don't think that's so different between U.S., Copenhagen or my place (Finland). It might be different in less modernist cultures where people don't have bathrooms of their own but go to communal baths -- for example, communities in East Karelia/Russia; there many people just bath twice a week in a public баня and that would surely show up in water consumption per person when measured per apartment. On the other hand, there you probably will see that water is not priced at cost and many many taps will leak a lot...

whyenot 11y ago

On the peninsula (Purissima Hills Water District) we pay about €1.49/kL for the same Hetch Hetchy water. The quality of San Francisco's water is pretty amazing. At home I measure a total dissolved solids of <35 ppm. Compare to San Jose municipal water with a TDS usually above 400 ppm (the value does jump around a lot depending on where SJ is getting its water from).

alkonaut 11y ago

Sweden has decent water even at the lower rates. For example, Salmon fishing is still popular in central Stockholm (salmon is really picky about water quality), and swimming is definitely possible in the central city there too. What the water costs only limits the water use, it doesn't change how much can be spent on water treatment and other projects, there is also tax money. Sweden and Denmark have very high taxes, it helps.

null-object 11y ago
As with so many other things, Swedes seem to be happy to persist the myth of superior drinking and bathing water which actually doesn't match the facts, at all. The water in central Stockholm is a slimy cocktail of raw sewage, localized heavy metals from old industries, algae and pesticides. These articles are unfortunately all in Swedish - swedes prefer to keep their bad news local: Raw sewage from new apartment buildings connected directly to one of the most popular bathing places in central Stockholm that ran out freely for at least three years: http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article12848092.ab http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article12848092.ab Farm organizations warning about swimming in Stockholm's water after rainfall: http://www.lantbruk.com/debatt/varfor-ska-jordbruket-sta-vid-skampalen http://www.lantbruk.com/debatt/varfor-ska-jordbruket-sta-vid... Raw sewage that has run directly out into bathing water in central Stockholm from an apartment house for the past 85 years: http://www.dn.se/sthlm/sa-mycket-bajsvatten-rinner-ut-i-stockholm/ http://www.dn.se/sthlm/sa-mycket-bajsvatten-rinner-ut-i-stoc... An article stating that the equivalent of 354 Olympic-sized swimming pools of raw sewage and polluted water gushes straight out into the middle of Stockholm's water every year: http://gamla.mitti.se/bajsvattnet-rinner-ratt-ut/ http://gamla.mitti.se/bajsvattnet-rinner-ratt-ut/ An article about the large scale of health problems following outbreaks of serious bacterial infections from tap water infected by raw sewage systematically entering drinking water without ultraviolet cleaning: http://www.dn.se/nyheter/sverige/manga-annu-sjuka-efter-parasitutbrott/ http://www.dn.se/nyheter/sverige/manga-annu-sjuka-efter-para... Heavy metals and other poisons in Stockholm's water: http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article10358091.ab http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article10358091.ab
- gozo 11y ago