6 ms·

Tell that to my water bill, the drought surcharge is still over 50% of the bill...

dsfyu404ed 8y ago
That's just how it goes. Revenue streams never go away. Government becomes dependent on that revenue and continuing to collect is it easier than re-shuffling other revenue around or choosing what to de-fund so the revenue gets kept. Get used to your drought surcharge. It's not going anywhere. Edit: Based on the popularity of this comment one would think government revenue streams go poof all the time. If anybody has evidence of this I would like to know more about is to I can advocate for replicating those circumstance in my state.
- benj111 8y ago
  >Revenue streams I see what you did there.
- mey 8y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_telephone_excise_tax https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_telephone_excise_tax
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    Reading the article it sounds like the federal government never actually repealed the tax (Clinton vetoed the most recent attempt) but collection was ultimately halted in 2006 as a result of a federal court ruling. I guess the tax did actually go away but it was not voluntary on the part of the government. Edit: Is this interpretation incorrect or just inconvenient?
- noonespecial 8y ago
  Remember those "fuel surcharges" from when gas was over $4/gallon? Me too. I'm still paying them.
  - jandrese 8y ago
    You've ridden in a taxi lately too huh? Gas was $1.99/gallon and the cab adds a $2 "fuel surcharge" for a 10 minute ride.
ceejayoz 8y ago
The changes in behavior those surcharges are intended to cause remain important, especially as future droughts are quite likely.
- pstrateman 8y ago
  Residential water use is a tiny fraction of the states water use. The drought surcharges are complete and utter bullshit.
- Varcht 8y ago
  Oh the quality of life behaviors of residents that use a very small percentage of the water? Residents use 10% of the water, 50% of the water is "environmental" and is dumped into the ocean for the smelt, etc.[0] [0] https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/ https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/
  - ceejayoz 8y ago
    > 50% of the water is "environmental" and is dumped into the ocean for the smelt That's a funny way of saying "we didn't want to dry up the rivers", isn't it?
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - Varcht 8y ago
      It is sort of a trope in CA, oh and it's the deltas, are you saying that stinking up their bathrooms with un-flushed urine and being charged a surcharge to save 10% of 10% of the available water is logical? Isn't it really just a "feel good" thing?
      - sbov 8y ago
        Residents weren't being asked to save 10% of 10% because taking that water from the environment would destroy it. They were being asked to save 10% of 10% so agriculture couldn't point to residents and say "see, they're doing it, we should be able to take whatever we need to from the delta too". No one is arguing about wet years either. Look at the dry year example. 36% environmental. 62% agriculture. 13% urban. Edit: also notice the chart - the delta is only about half of those environmental percentages (on average, unfortunately they don't split it out for dry years). The other half comes from "North Coast" which seems likely to be more difficult to take advantage of - at least I haven't heard any controversy over trying to use that water. We don't know what the exact percentage would be in a dry year, but it would still be below 36%.
docker_up 8y ago
The reason for the surcharge is Orwellian. The water company asked us to reduce, reuse and recycle. We complied. We did such a great job, that they increased rates because we weren't using enough water and they weren't making enough money. It's insane.
- jayd16 8y ago
  I'm not sure Orwellian fits. Really the price should be a flat rate because its not about the marginal cost of providing water. ...but then that leads to the idea that you can use any amount of water and it's fine so they have a punitive use charge to change user behavior. But because of the extra revenue, they can lower the flat rate. ...but that gets you in trouble if the punitive charges decrease. So you have to adjust to a relative usage surcharge which is basically where we're at but it just looks like "why lower if they raise the rates?". ...well because it's relative to everyone else's usage.
  - lisper 8y ago
    I think the word the GP was looking for is "Kafkaesque".
- butstillbad99 8y ago
  Did you expect the utility to eat the costs of lower consumption despite their costs going up? I doubt the dip in water use was enough to offset the wear on infra that needs to be dealt with. Or the labor costs to do that maintenance which go up each year. Oh sure some of the revenue may be useless but you can’t expect something like a water utility to behave like a social media company. Facebook could go tits up and people are out of jobs. What happens when a water utility folds?
OrgNet 8y ago
is it legal to get rain barrels and other types of rain collection systems?
- cjensen 8y ago
  Yes. They are not as useful as you might hope since California's dry season lasts six months, so they will go empty when you need them the most.
  - OrgNet 8y ago
    I guess it depends on how much water you collect....
- bdamm 8y ago
  Of course it is generally legal to collect rain from your roof, assuming local HOA rules allow it. But you won’t likely get much quality water from that. Better would be greywater collection and recycling.
  - exhilaration 8y ago
    He's asking because in some states it's illegal to collect rain water, it belongs to someone else. Colorado, for example, only recently legalized rain barrels - but limits it to only 2: https://source.colostate.edu/extension-offers-fact-sheet-on-how-to-harvest-rainwater-under-new-colorado-rules/ https://source.colostate.edu/extension-offers-fact-sheet-on-...
    - daveslash 8y ago
      in some states rain water belongs to someone else -- the most surprising thing I've learned this whole month...
    - bdamm 8y ago
      I was reluctant to state it completely because California's constitution itself limits water rights. It would be unconstitutional to cover your entire property with a giant roof and capture all the water, thereby eliminating the creek downstream of your property and denying the downstream users of their riparian rights. However this is not the use I believe the OP was looking at.
lscotte 8y ago
Don't worry, they won't give you any of that back, unfortunately. We moved out of California last year, but during the drought we cut back like everyone. How did the water company reward us? Oh, they didn't make enough money anymore because everyone was conserving water so they raised everyone's rates. Sheer madness.

That's just how it goes. Revenue streams never go away. Government becomes dependent on that revenue and continuing to collect is it easier than re-shuffling other revenue around or choosing what to de-fund so the revenue gets kept. Get used to your drought surcharge. It's not going anywhere. Edit: Based on the popularity of this comment one would think government revenue streams go poof all the time. If anybody has evidence of this I would like to know more about is to I can advocate for replicating those circumstance in my state.

benj111 8y ago
>Revenue streams I see what you did there.
mey 8y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_telephone_excise_tax https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_telephone_excise_tax
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  Reading the article it sounds like the federal government never actually repealed the tax (Clinton vetoed the most recent attempt) but collection was ultimately halted in 2006 as a result of a federal court ruling. I guess the tax did actually go away but it was not voluntary on the part of the government. Edit: Is this interpretation incorrect or just inconvenient?
noonespecial 8y ago
Remember those "fuel surcharges" from when gas was over $4/gallon? Me too. I'm still paying them.
- jandrese 8y ago
  You've ridden in a taxi lately too huh? Gas was $1.99/gallon and the cab adds a $2 "fuel surcharge" for a 10 minute ride.

ceejayoz 8y ago

The changes in behavior those surcharges are intended to cause remain important, especially as future droughts are quite likely.

pstrateman 8y ago
Residential water use is a tiny fraction of the states water use. The drought surcharges are complete and utter bullshit.
Varcht 8y ago
Oh the quality of life behaviors of residents that use a very small percentage of the water? Residents use 10% of the water, 50% of the water is "environmental" and is dumped into the ocean for the smelt, etc.[0] [0] https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/ https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/
- ceejayoz 8y ago
  > 50% of the water is "environmental" and is dumped into the ocean for the smelt That's a funny way of saying "we didn't want to dry up the rivers", isn't it?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - Varcht 8y ago
    It is sort of a trope in CA, oh and it's the deltas, are you saying that stinking up their bathrooms with un-flushed urine and being charged a surcharge to save 10% of 10% of the available water is logical? Isn't it really just a "feel good" thing?
    - sbov 8y ago
      Residents weren't being asked to save 10% of 10% because taking that water from the environment would destroy it. They were being asked to save 10% of 10% so agriculture couldn't point to residents and say "see, they're doing it, we should be able to take whatever we need to from the delta too". No one is arguing about wet years either. Look at the dry year example. 36% environmental. 62% agriculture. 13% urban. Edit: also notice the chart - the delta is only about half of those environmental percentages (on average, unfortunately they don't split it out for dry years). The other half comes from "North Coast" which seems likely to be more difficult to take advantage of - at least I haven't heard any controversy over trying to use that water. We don't know what the exact percentage would be in a dry year, but it would still be below 36%.

docker_up 8y ago

The reason for the surcharge is Orwellian. The water company asked us to reduce, reuse and recycle. We complied. We did such a great job, that they increased rates because we weren't using enough water and they weren't making enough money. It's insane.

jayd16 8y ago
I'm not sure Orwellian fits. Really the price should be a flat rate because its not about the marginal cost of providing water. ...but then that leads to the idea that you can use any amount of water and it's fine so they have a punitive use charge to change user behavior. But because of the extra revenue, they can lower the flat rate. ...but that gets you in trouble if the punitive charges decrease. So you have to adjust to a relative usage surcharge which is basically where we're at but it just looks like "why lower if they raise the rates?". ...well because it's relative to everyone else's usage.
- lisper 8y ago
  I think the word the GP was looking for is "Kafkaesque".
butstillbad99 8y ago
Did you expect the utility to eat the costs of lower consumption despite their costs going up? I doubt the dip in water use was enough to offset the wear on infra that needs to be dealt with. Or the labor costs to do that maintenance which go up each year. Oh sure some of the revenue may be useless but you can’t expect something like a water utility to behave like a social media company. Facebook could go tits up and people are out of jobs. What happens when a water utility folds?

OrgNet 8y ago

is it legal to get rain barrels and other types of rain collection systems?

cjensen 8y ago
Yes. They are not as useful as you might hope since California's dry season lasts six months, so they will go empty when you need them the most.
- OrgNet 8y ago
  I guess it depends on how much water you collect....
bdamm 8y ago
Of course it is generally legal to collect rain from your roof, assuming local HOA rules allow it. But you won’t likely get much quality water from that. Better would be greywater collection and recycling.
- exhilaration 8y ago
  He's asking because in some states it's illegal to collect rain water, it belongs to someone else. Colorado, for example, only recently legalized rain barrels - but limits it to only 2: https://source.colostate.edu/extension-offers-fact-sheet-on-how-to-harvest-rainwater-under-new-colorado-rules/ https://source.colostate.edu/extension-offers-fact-sheet-on-...
  - daveslash 8y ago
    in some states rain water belongs to someone else -- the most surprising thing I've learned this whole month...
  - bdamm 8y ago
    I was reluctant to state it completely because California's constitution itself limits water rights. It would be unconstitutional to cover your entire property with a giant roof and capture all the water, thereby eliminating the creek downstream of your property and denying the downstream users of their riparian rights. However this is not the use I believe the OP was looking at.

lscotte 8y ago

Don't worry, they won't give you any of that back, unfortunately. We moved out of California last year, but during the drought we cut back like everyone. How did the water company reward us? Oh, they didn't make enough money anymore because everyone was conserving water so they raised everyone's rates. Sheer madness.