Drought update: What, us worry?

One had to figure that, with the significant rainfall that Durham's had in the last few days, the calls would begin to put the drought "behind us."

Well, one needs to look no further than Wednesday's Herald-Sun letters to the editors page, in which one Harold Erickson of Durham calls for an end to our current water restrictions. I mean, hey, if you follow his logic, the water's just spilling over anyway, right?

"The days of cheap and available water are over" one doomsday official proclaimed recently.    

Nonsense.    

North Carolina gets 30-plus inches of rain a year, and our reservoirs survived even last year's exceptional drought. When a direct tap to Jordan Lake is completed, we should be free of even long-term worries. We may well face another drought this summer, next summer or 10 years from now. If so, we may need to conserve again for a few months. For now, can we please cancel the water restrictions?

Now, on the one hand, Erickson makes a valid point. The reservoirs are full, so there's not a direct benefit to our water storage system from reducing water use. Barry made a similar point over at his place the other day, though focused more on his concerns around development. (A fundamental point on which we disagree: Durham's 2% per annum growth rate is perfectly reasonable, and between in-migration and local births, modest growth is unavoidable. But we've discussed that here before.)

But this isn't simply an issue of flows and reservoirs. It's an issue of changing behaviors and perspectives, not just on the part of citizens, but elected officials, too.

It's not a surprise to see this backlash starting on conservation, though -- or to see it starting among citizens like Barry who've been actively and aggressively trying to save on their water use, and making sacrifices to do so. The problem is, it's not a shared burden.

For all the hand-wringing over the impact of water restrictions, the truth is that when you're looking at year-over-year figures, our fair Bull City citizenry has only managed to eke out about a 10% reduction in water use versus a 30-50% target. It's not particularly clear that all residents have, to a broad extent, been doing their part.

Instead, we're seeing the sacrifice borne by those residents making severe cutbacks, with others reducing only a little or not at all. (For what it's worth, Raleigh has just made available GIS data showing which regions of the City have reduced water usage the most; one can only hope Durham will follow suit.)

While I can understand the source of frustration, though, a knee-jerk approach to lifting restrictions too quickly has its own risks.

First of all, it's worth remembering that Durham is still pulling water in from Jordan Lake, a water flow that's accounting for about 10% of our daily usage. Erickson is right that Jordan is the future for Durham's water supply -- but it's not the future yet, pending a better long-term arrangement with Cary or a second water intake off the lake.

In the absence of those, Durham is paying a rate to Cary to buy that town's water that's well above the cost of treating water here in town. The City would certainly love to throttle back the use of the Cary connection -- something that becomes harder, no doubt, if our water usage levels start creeping back up.

There's a second, and more substantial risk, to lifting the water restrictions too quickly. We've got a long, hot summer coming back, and it's not clear that the rains we've had of late will persist to the levels needed during the warm seasons on the way.

Starting and stopping water restrictions is not a frictionless process. The moment that we drop water restrictions entirely, the issue of the drought -- of which this year's challenges are just one tougher stretch of a decade-long dry spell -- goes out of the public mind.

And, frankly, until we know for sure that we're out of hot water on this one, some caution on the part of City officials is welcome. Given the course of history, it's somewhat unusual to see Durham officials still paying attention even with the reservoirs filling up. Frankly, I'm glad to see Durham's staff and City Council over-cautious about water use rather than taking a more cavalier approach.

After all, the last time the Triangle found itself in the deepest depth of drought, about six years ago, communities cheerfully pulled water restrictions the moment the immediate crisis was over.

And where did we end up? With one exception, the Triangle was again making poor water consumption choices; again failing to find permanent fixes to our supply and demand challenges; again challenged by drought in 2007.

That one exception? The town of Cary, which maintained a moderate level of water restrictions and took the fact that we're in a decade-plus-long dry period seriously. Cary, the ant to Durham and Raleigh's grasshoppers, was the sole system to find itself with a surplus of water capacity this time around -- an excess it's gladly sold off to Durham.

...

Still, the current situation isn't tenable for long. It's clear that the current restrictions are overly burdening those who are working to meet the tough targets; even if that nets out to a needed outcome for the whole city, it's not shared pain across the board.

This brings up the issue I have the most concerns with in Erickson's letter to the Herald-Sun: that the days of 'cheap and available water are over,' a concept to which he takes exception.

First off, part of the problem is that our water is too cheap. 90% of N.C. cities charge more than Durham does for water. If we want to see water use reductions across the board, a mix of a higher core cost for water mixed with an intensive tiered system for water rates are the way to do it.

As long as we make it too easy and cheap to waste water, folks will continue to do so. We get this concept in so many other economic contexts. Why don't we get it in this one?

Besides helping to encourage conservation, extra revenue would help support the very upgrades needed to ensure that our water supply does, in fact, remain highly available.

Mr. Erickson seems to be saying that, of course it rained, and it always will rain, eventually. Are our reservoir levels nearing historic norms? Yes. But if the climatologists that spoke at the Duke-Durham drought forum earlier this winter are right, the issue isn't going to be the average rainfall, but the standard deviation, over the coming decades.

That is, we're still going to get the same amount of rain we always have -- but we'll need to endure far longer dry spells, as well as periods of heavier rainfall and flooding.

A deeper connection to Jordan Lake is absolutely needed to address this problem. But it's not free or even cheap to do so. Tiered rates and higher base rates could help address this issue.

No matter what mix of demand- and supply-side approaches are taken, one would hope we've learned enough from this year's drought experience to know that thinking of water as cheap and easily available is nothing shot of a recipe for disaster.

...

At the end of the day, the worst thing that could happen would be for Durham to forget the challenges of the drought, and to move on with business as usual.

If we're smart, as a community we'll continue to put pressure on the City Council for starting to focus more on the ideas proposed by the Planning Commission for long-term changes to water use, from improving the approach to stormwater re-use to incentives for low-flow fixtures to changing landscaping requirements to more conservation-minded standards.

And we'll continue to press the City to make the supply-side changes needed to ensure that Jordan Lake comes online as a real solution, not a mid-crisis solution.

Truth be told, we have very little to be "proud" of in terms of how Durham's managed to find its way out of this drought. We lucked out, in the sense that it finally rained. It wasn't a triumph of public policy; it wasn't a triumph of broad-based compliance with water reduction goals.

We shouldn't have to live with Stage IV/Stage III restrictions unnecessarily. But declaring the war won and the battle over now is still a bit premature. It's in our human nature to do so. But given the history of our human nature with last droughts, put me down for preferring a measure of caution to an over-hasty end to restrictions.

Comments

[KeepDurhamDifferent!]

Sorry, I agree that it is time to lift water restrictions. Long term we need three things: (1) tiered pricing and higher rates; (2) stop selling water to Dasani and Aquafina or at least raise the price; and (3) fix the leakage in Durham's aging infrastructure. These should not be paid for with taxes, but rather by user fees / higher water prices.

As to the days of cheap and available water being over -- not a chance. Look at what Israel and Australia are doing with desalination. Look at the rise in incomes -- on an inflation adjusted basis water is cheaper than 30 years ago (which is not to say this trend will continue, esp. if we have to resort to expensive methods such as desalination).

There has been so much useless ink spilled by the bloggers and water babies over the current "crisis." Yes, we need to cut back -- one look at my yard shows I have cut back -- but the bottom line is that this is a political problem because of the lack of free markets.

Underlying the water babies's concern is a neo-Malthusian view of resource shortages, and a predisposition towards limiting growth a la Chapel Hill. I happen to like the influx of immigrants seeking a low cost of living.

[Bull City Rising]

David: I don't think we're that far apart on this. We do need tiered and higher rates; and we do need to fix the leaks.

I also don't think we need to take a Chapel Hill approach to trying to halt growth -- an approach which I suspect is based as much on socioeconomic concerns as on actual sustainability. Halting growth is just not feasible in a nation with a growing population, period.

That said, I think you're agreeing with me on the "cheap" part -- water in Durham is too inexpensive right now, bottom line. The "available" part is out there, but takes dollars to get to, and as you point out, desalination is far more expensive than current treatment approaches.

Personally, I don't mind Pepsi buying all the water it wants for its Aquafina plant in Raleigh -- as long as it does so at whatever new tiered rate becomes appropriate.

[KeepDurhamDifferent!]

You're right, we're not far apart.

[Michael Bacon]

I said something similar over at Barry's, but I'll repeat it here.

I've already blogged a couple of times about tiered water rates. I think that's definitely the first step, and one that looks like is coming in August or so. The next step is to raise the water/sewer impact fee substantially. Once again, the easiest way to understand our predicament last year is that our growth outstripped our capacity to build infrastructure. Unlike for schools, we already have legislative (and constitutional) authority to charge for new water hook-ups. Increasing that water impact fee right now means that we don't have to start deciding between "water restrictions forever!" and "no more growth ever!"

And Kevin, another quibble I'd draw is that the reservoirs are not returning to "historic norms." They're returning to "full," as in, they can't hold any more water.

Stage II or III restrictions are probably still appropriate, maybe for another month. Unless there's still substantial worries about groundwater levels (and that may be the case), it's time to start backing up from the restrictions that were put in place at a time when we had a month's supply of water instead of a years.

One more thing: Yes, we're only down about 10% from normal right now. But that's about the best we're going to get during a time when in most years there's no irrigation happening anyway, because it's raining heavily twice a week. It's pretty hard to trim much more off of that without starting to skip showers every other day and installing composting toilets.

[Derek]

Rather than penalties, let's talk about incentives for conservation. Tax rebates for dual-flush toilets, ultra lo-flow toilets, water-sipping washing machines, hot water recirculation devices, etc. Virtually all Western cities (Denver, LA, etc), several western states, and even a few Eastern states have these. Where in the hell are these things for North Carolina or the Triangle? I've heard nary a word.

Water conserving appliances and fixtures are great because the savings comes at almost no convenience cost. You just do the same old, same old but use less water without noticing it. People don't like changing habits, taking 3 minute showers, or hauling buckets around the house.

We definitely need higher prices and tiered rates. I think Durham should mandate that new developments must install a grey-water hookups like Cary for irrigation use. (This is coming to RTP soon, right?) Buyers of new houses could keep their lawns green and never notice the difference, and the builder would hookup their irrigation system to grey water. (The use of regular drinking water for irrigation would be banned if a grey water hookup was present.)

The Durham penalties are a feeble slap on the wrist, and almost no one has received a penalty. I'd keep them at Stage 3 for kicks but it doesn't seem to matter. The few and the proud socially conscious folks adjust their behavior, but nobody else does.

[Michael Bacon]

Derek,

Not sure if you're addressing me, but impact fees aren't penalties. They're the fee you pay when you build a house or apartment to offset the cost of the added stress on the local infrastructure. They're the designated way to make growth pay for its own infrastructure. The fact that we have one full and one nearly full reservoir and we're still talking about Stage VI measures means that growth hasn't been paying its full weight so far.

[Ted Voorhees]

This is a very thoughtful and well reasoned post. Look for several big initiatives that we have been working on to come before the City Council in April. These will hopefully indicate our committment to taking a balanced approach for sustainable and conservation-minded practices.

Ted Voorhees, Deputy City Manager

[Dave N.]

Derek,

Until all those who have never paid an impact fee for their homes are given the same one-time obligation to ante-up, will it be anything but a penalty.

Somehow we were able to put 113,000+ housing units in Durham County and build all this infrastructure without a single dollar of impact fees.

How exactly does the 114,000th house change the equation? Answer: We existing residents like the idea of Other People paying for all this stuff we want.

[Jay Zenner]

Two suggestions that might be considered that I haven't seen in these posts. My water bill has both water and sewer charges. As I understand it this lets people have separately metered connections for irrigation systems and swimming pools since the sewer charge is based on water usage for the home connection. (Water going on the lawn or in the pool doesn't flow through the sewer and get treated.)Fold the two things together into one rate. For most people there won't be any difference in their bill but it will discourage profiglate use of irrigation systems and leave an incentive for collecting rainwater and greywater for irrigation. Second, there must be an engineering solution for identifying leaks. I don't know if it's metering at strategic connections on watermains or what to narrow down where the leaks are. I know a least one place where I walk where the street was always wet even during the worst of the drought. The patching pattern indicated that several attempts had already been attempted to correct the leaks. If you're seeing water in the street it's not hard to imagine a whole lot being lost underground. Higher rates even when we aren't in a drought should generate the capital funds to identify these leaks and repair the infrastructure.

[Michael Bacon]

Dave N.:

Ahem. Not sure what you're reading, but water and sewer impact fees have been around for a very long time now. Decades at least, perhaps even as long as Durham has had a public water supply. So most of those 113k+ homes did, in fact, pay an impact fee.

That fee is, of course, set as a simple dollar figure. It isn't automatically adjusted for inflation. As the cost of infrastructure, plumbing, and labor goes up, that impact fee does not pay for as much. And hence, if you want to continue to be fair, that impact fee has to be raised by the Council every so often.

The recent fight about impact fees had to do with those for schools, not for water and sewer, which many people think would be a good idea too. There is also a transportation impact fee that every new unit pays -- it is not remotely new either.

[KeepDurhamDifferent!]

Impact fees are a tough one for us libertarians. Yes, it's better than a general tax which hits everyone (and gets wasted on a hip hop council or a bridge to nowhere), but it's also rather NIMBY and anti-growth, not to mention subject to all of the usual political shenanigans (exemptions, credits, kickbacks). I suppose the ideal solution is privatisation.

I used to live in a small NJ town which limited growth (and taxes) by simply not building infrastructure. Need more water? Dig a well -- hope you have $15K. There's nothing preventing you from starting a private water company, however, and many small nabes did exactly that.

This is kind of like fixing the speeding issues by not fixing the potholes. Win win!

[Barry]

Kevin - i tried to boil down my perspective into a couple of sentences, which i'll repeat here:

"Stage IV (and Stage III for that matter) water use restrictions are tools for managing a crisis. Crisis management is not a useful method for creating and maintaining long term, beneficial public policy."

What the city is doing currently is managing the crisis of perhaps not having enough water to go around. What it needs to do is develop policies that prevent the crisis from occurring in the future. I wouldn't say that i'm calling for an end to conservation measures, per se. Just playing devil's advocate to try to stimulate some longer term thinking and leadership on this issue.

Even 2% growth comes out to (at current usage) an additional 400,000 - 600,000 gallons per day, based on 2007 usage that ranged from 20 million gallons per day to around 33 mgd. Compound that over even 5 years, and we've added 3,000,000 gallons per day minimum to our baseline demand. That's about what we've been able to reduce our demand by year over year in 2008. (It's actually a bit closer to 15% than 10%, btw.)

I know a lot of people have dismissed Carrboro Mayor Chilton's call for cutting Durham off from the Jordan Lake taps if Durham doesn't change its development policies. But guess what? He's been invited to speak, in Durham, at the upcoming Women for Wise Growth forum at the downtown library on April 2, with Bill Holman and Syd Miller. So that proposal is definitely going to go into the mix. Even if it gets dismissed out of hand as having no political possibility. It's going to be part of the discourse.

The history of water rights in this country tells us that water sharing agreements are easy to make when water is plentiful, hard to keep when it dries up. We should be aware of that.

[Barry]

Oh, and a special note to Michael - inflows at Lake Michie - http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nc/nwis/uv?site_no=02085500 - and at Little River - http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nc/nwis/uv?site_no=0208521324 - while below historic medians, are above the non-existent levels we saw at the end of last year, and are actually slightly above the level needed to meet daily demand right now. What that tells me is that we're starting to make a dent in the groundwater situation, since it's been 6 full days since we had any rain. There's a 30-50% chance of rain in the forecast for the next couple of days. Let's see if that helps some more too.

Since Lake Michie is full, we are, hopefully, pumping water from there to Little River.

[Sean Wilson]

I don't have a pony in this race (or a dog). I just wanted to applaud the reference to Thomas Malthus.

The Malthusian Nightmare! I know about that! At long last, my Sociology degree provides real-world benefits, right here on BCR.

[Dave N.]

Michael,

You're absolutely right. I misread the initial reference to impact fees and assumed we are back on the school impact fee boondoggle. (Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how edit the comment.)

[Derek]

Just catching up with y'all.... I meant nothing about impact fees. I think grey water irrigation is a great idea, but it's not practical to rip up every existing street just to put it in. So start it with the new developments. It worked well in Cary because so much of the town is predominately new construction. Anyway:

The main point of my post was to think about incentives for conservation. Right now, the only incentive to use less water is a fractionally cheaper water bill, and the warm glow I get from doing the right thing. Most residents aren't profligate; they just don't think about their usage much. Most of my coworkers are clueless about the drought despite the seemingly endless media on it. They won't reduce their usage because they don't think about it.

To get them, and everyone else, to use less water, we need to make it as easy as possible. And it must become everyday behavior, not a response to restrictions (which are inherently inefficient from an economics perspective). I believe the best way to consistently reduce water usage on a year-round basis is to propagate efficient fixtures and appliances through incentives.

As I pointed out earlier, tax incentives/rebates are extremely common elsewhere. e.g. http://www.cityofprescott.net/services/water/conservation.php
http://www.sdcwa.org/manage/conservation-overview.phtml

Disclaimer: I just moved into a 1988 Durham house and it has all original fixtures, so upgrades are on my mind. I'd love to buy three $350+ea Toto Aquia dual-flush toilets to do the right thing, but when 1.6GPF fixtures are $125, why should I? It will take ages to reach positive ROI on those Totos at current rates; with a rebate, maybe only a year or two.

[Barry]

Derek - i'd hang on to any receipts from the purchase of one of those high efficiency, 1.28 gpf toilets.

you never know what's coming down the pike.