“At the moment, EBMUD has limited options for going after water-bill scofflaws. For example, it doesn’t have the legal right to place financial liens on delinquent property owners, although Assemblywoman Loni Hancock is sponsoring a bill that would change that. However, the agency does have some powerful weapons in its arsenal. For example, it could install water-flow restrictors on the homes that waste the most water, or it could shut off the water completely when homeowners refuse to pay their bills.”

The article is discouraging, it makes one consider public protest on the other side of the tunnel. What are the options for getting a little justice?

For reference and comparison, here are some average water use for some part os Alameda based on EBMUD’s customer query database:

Oak Street/Alameda — 136 gallons per day (gpd)
Central Avenue/Alameda — 155 gpd
Bayport/Alameda — 215 gpd
Bayview/Alameda — 239 gpd
Harbor Bay/Alameda — 446 gpd

Most of the use east-of-the-hills (Lafayette, Moraga, Orinda, Blackhawk et al.) average over 700 gpd with a high of 1,600 gpd last year.

Doug or anyone, is it possible to recognize the number of persons in a home, or as I’ve suggested, is that simply too complex? I’m assuming your 100 gallon figure is per household. This may be total nonsense or something I have fabricated out of false memory, but I thought that in the seventies I recall living through a period where there was a 250 gallon per day limit on households. Sharing a house with one other bachelor we could have had a fountain in our yard with our excess allotment .

We are favoring the carrot over the stick in our approach. The goal here is to find a way to achieve a 19% reduction in residential water use (as well as conservation in other sectors). Those who are wasting the most will have the most to gain in savings. Those who are already saving are unlikely to be penalized as I’ve outlined above.

My biggest concern is that there isn’t enough “incentive” or “penalty” however you want to put it, to make the big “wasters” conserve. A 10% rate increase in order to use as much water on your lawn as you always have and not let it die or turn brown? Seems like a good deal to me. I pushed for a higher incremental rate increase on big water users when we debated this in May, but couldn’t get a board majority. I’m quite worried about whether we’re going to hit our conservation targets. Ironically, EBMUD may be using our drought fund, intended to soften the blow of water shortages that cause revenue shortages, to make it too easy for big water users, primarily in the east of hills, to continue their business as usual.

Right now, we’re well behind our target conservation rates, but we’ll know more when public education campaign starts in earnest later this month.

Thanks for raising the issue. I hate to bring it up, but just as with all the flaws with the recent parcel tax Measure H, it’s a blunt instrument chosen because it’s so hard to fine tune it.

If I conserve water already, 10% of my usage is less than my neighbor, but I am still at an unfair disadvantage over somebody who has been a hog for the last three years.

The disparity between sides of the east bay hills is a bigger deal, especially when you are talking more than double the usage on one side. It’s hotter over there but many homes also have large lots and … well we all know it’s about landscaping isn’t it? Do gold courses in the desert make sense? not to me.