Drought legacy: water costs more

Before the drought, the more water you used, the less you paid per 1,000 gallons. But the Environmental Protection Division pushed water providers for “conservation rates” in which the opposite is true — the more water you use, the more you pay per 1,000 gallons.

One way that’s showing up is when customers inadvertently use a lot of water — generally when there is a leak, but those home irrigation systems are often to blame — and the resulting water bill is higher than ever before. Often, the first time customers are aware of the effect of the rate change is when that shockingly high bill arrives.

Cheap water is going the way of $1.50 gasoline. Consumers can no longer be careless in their use of water unless they’re prepared to pay for it. That’s exactly what the EPD had in mind in pushing for “conservation rates.” Nothing encourages conservation like the high price of not conserving.