To: The ABC "Australia talks back" programme

Sent: Tuesday, 10 December 2002 6:41 PM

Subject: water, water everywhere...

Hi XXX,

quick comment: we live in an area where the installation of a water supply was mandated some years ago, against the wishes of many residents. If the water main passed your property, you had to pay the levy/rate or whatever, whether you did connect to it or not. So obviously you connected to town water, and the temptation to be a bit profligate, with water on tap, is usually hard to resist.

From our own experience, I have two suggestions: first, allow property owners to opt out, and the savings on water rates will pay for a new 12,000 litre tank every few years; and second, use pricing dynamically to 'enforce' water-saving practices in times of drought, so that for instance at what is now Level 4 restrictions water costs say 100 times as much as the present 79 cents a kilolitre, i.e. $79 a kL. In the first case, property owners could be allowed to opt back in if their resource runs out, but would pay a higher price per kL than continuously connected users.

This is just off the cuff - a whole variety of properly thought out schemes could be devised, and water users would smarten up rather quickly.

Regarding the one-hour shower people: I am embarrassed to admit that during the recent Level 4 restrictions I did not shower at all but saved the water
for my young nashi trees...

Luckily today's rain has filled our new 12,000 litre tank almost halfway, so there's a bit of a reserve for the fruit trees now!