The Oak Bluffs’ semi-annual water bills will arrive soon and everyone, including summer residents, should read them carefully. The basic cost of water in Oak Bluffs has climbed dramatically over the last decade. In 2006 the flat rate was $313; this year it’s $500. That’s a whopping 56 per cent increase. Compare that to $382, which is what our flat rate water bill would be if it had risen at the actual U.S. inflation rate of 22.2 per cent. Why are the town water rates rising at more than double the rate of inflation? Is the water department setting high prices to encourage water conservation? Probably not. The fact is a flat rate doesn’t encourage water conservation. Rather it encourages wasting water precisely because the consumer receives no benefit from the act of conserving water. The water department’s pricing scheme is a three-tiered rate system. The first tier is a flat rate of $500 for up to 60,000 gallons, which translates to a rate of $8.33 per 1,000 gallons. The second tier (above 60,000 gallons) is $2.12 per thousand gallons; the third tier (above 100,000 gallons) is $2.84 per thousand gallons. That means the flat rate is nearly four times greater than the second tier (heavy consumers) and nearly three times greater than the third tier (mega consumers)!

That doesn’t make sense. Wait, that’s not the whole story. That 60,000-gallon flat rate allotment is based on the normal usage of a family of four. But since it is a flat rate, a family of four which actively conserves water such that it only consumes 50,000 gallons causes their rates to rise to $10 per thousand gallons. Inexplicable. A two-person household that consumes 30,000 gallons inflates their rate to $16.67 per thousand gallons. Yikes. But a single person household which actively conserves water and only uses 10,000 gallons pays the astronomical rate of $50 per thousand gallons — more than 17 times greater than the rate for the mega users. So much for encouraging water conservation.

The water department will say the flat rate is not merely a charge for water usage but that it is also a charge to recover the costs of infrastructure. Their theory is this: infrastructure costs should be equally divided among all rate payers because the infrastructure is in place whether or not the consumer chooses to use any water. Therefore, 100 per cent of those costs should be collected in the first tier. The problem with this theory is it charges all infrastructure costs as if consumption was a nonexistent component. But a significant amount of infrastructure costs are due to inordinately high consumption. What should the Oak Bluffs water department do, and rate payers demand? Some suggestions:

* Eliminate the flat rate and meter all water usage.

• Have more rate tiers in smaller increments.

• Have the lowest rate for the least amount of consumption and increase the rates as consumption increases.

• Account for household size in the tier pricing scheme. For example, if a one-person household consumes 10,000 gallons and a four-person household consumes 40,000 gallons (10,000 gallons per person), both households should pay the same rate per gallon of consumption. (Household information is collected by the town and readily available.)

• Apportion a percentage of the infrastructure costs to the higher tiers.

• Be transparent. Itemize both infrastructure costs and water consumption costs by tier on the water bills. Let the consumers clearly see the costs of infrastructure, the costs of water consumption and the relationship between them. If you want people and entities to conserve water make them pay when they waste and reward them when they conserve.

Brian Hughes
Oak Bluffs