water

[Neal Oldham]

Hi all,

For the heck of it, while I was paying my water bill, I did some analysis of my consumption and rates.

For background, we have two adults and one toddler living in a 1050 ft^2 apartment in San Jose.  Two bed, two bath, one washer, dryer, dishwasher.

In February, we used 5938 gallons of water (212 gallons per day), or 71 gallons of water per day per person.  My understanding is that that puts us near the median for US daily household usage. Apparently babies use water at a higher rate (more frequent laundry?)

We paid 0.2819¢ per gallon, or $1 per 355 gallons.  When you compare that to the $1-2 you'll pay per gallon for bottled water ... wow.

Questions:

1.  What is the going rate for municipal water in Tennessee?

2.  Isn't this ridiculously cheap in a water-starved state like CA?

[Mac Davis]

I don’t know what municipal rates are around here but whatever they are they’re a bargain, as is your rate.   If you don’t believe it try maintaining your own water system, as Steve and I do.   Not only the cost but the aggravation of maintaining a small scale municipal treatment facility is significant, amounting to far more than what you are paying.
Mac

[Neal Oldham]

I'm sure ... We live just a couple of miles from the wastewater treatment facility for the area and it's HUGE ... When you see it from the air it's probably at least half the size of the city of Santa Clara and the road through the complex goes on forever.

The economy of scale you can get from municipal water is just amazing.  You could ask the Romans ...

[Steven Tyree]

It's cheap because charging the real cost of water would be political suicide.

 

We gather, store, and purify our own water, so don't know what the going rate is, sorry.

 

Steve

[Neal Oldham]

Steven,

Do you know what your cost is (amortization, maintenance, consumables, etc.) per gallon? 

[Steven Tyree]

No.  I try to avoid depressing activities.

 

We do need to invest about $2500 in another tank (5000 gallons) and pipeline to the existing system.  This will triple our capacity, and up our income 50% to about 1500 gallons per inch of rain, due to the extra roof we'd be collecting from.

 

Steve

[Robert D. Crawford]

Neal Oldham <onehundredp...@gmail.com> writes:

> 1. What is the going rate for municipal water in Tennessee?

Not sure about other areas, but here in the 'boro, as of July 08, the
rate for water is $2.74 per 100 cubic feet. According to google, 100
(cubic feet) = 748.051948 US gallons.

> 2. Isn't this ridiculously cheap in a water-starved state like CA?

As was mentioned before, charging the real cost of water is political
suicide. Much like charging the real cost of food. Riots, chaos, and
the rolling of heads. Aren't you glad we live in such a market-based,
laissez-faire society?

rdc
--
Robert D. Crawford rd...@comcast.net

"If you want to travel around the world and be invited to speak at a lot
of different places, just write a Unix operating system."
(By Linus Torvalds)

[Neal Oldham]

On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 11:33 AM, Robert D. Crawford <rd...@comcast.net> wrote:

Neal Oldham <onehundredp...@gmail.com> writes:

> 1. What is the going rate for municipal water in Tennessee?

Not sure about other areas, but here in the 'boro, as of July 08, the
rate for water is $2.74 per 100 cubic feet.  According to google, 100
(cubic feet) = 748.051948 US gallons.

So that is 0.367¢/gal vs 0.282¢/gal here.  That really doesn't make a lot of sense considering how Nashville gets 45+ inches of rain per year versus 14 inches of rain annually over here in Santa Clara County.

One possibility is that they bill you more for fluoridating your water, which we don't do in CA.

Of course, neither number comes within orders of magnitude of capturing the true value of freshwater.

 

> 2. Isn't this ridiculously cheap in a water-starved state like CA?

As was mentioned before, charging the real cost of water is political
suicide.  Much like charging the real cost of food.  Riots, chaos, and
the rolling of heads.  Aren't you glad we live in such a market-based,
laissez-faire society?

Yeehaw.