Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
In case you're considering putting a barrel in your yard to catch
the water falling from the sky, it's best to check your state's laws. In
some states, especially those with prior-appropriation water laws,
you may not have the right to water you catch in a barrel on your
property. That's because the water already is accounted for and the
rights to it allocated somewhere else in the system.
The Price of Your Water
Water in the United States is a deal, even factoring in the grow-
ing number of utilities raising rates across the country. Though
prices vary wildly, consider, for example, a water bill of $35 for
8,000 gallons of water per month. That equates to 228 gallons of
treated and tested water per dollar—delivered and available to each
home and business 24 hours a day, seven days a week. “Compared
with other commodities that we rely on in our daily lives, it
is a pretty good deal,” says Greg Huff, CEO of the Iowa Rural Water
Association, an industry organization that provides training and
assistance to the Iowa water and wastewater industry.
Let's look at how much Americans paid for their water in 2010.
Municipal water rates were highest in Atlanta, Georgia ($7.30
per thousand gallons), and lowest in Savannah, Georgia ($1.25 per
thousand gallons), according to a 51-city survey by Park Ridge,
New Jersey-based NUS Consulting Group, energy cost consul-
tants. Though NUS looked only at commercial and industrial users
in those cities, its survey provides a snapshot of cost trends. More
results of their survey of 2010 and 2009 rates include:
Los Angeles had the biggest year-over-year increase in water
rates, up 20.7 percent to $5.02/1,000 gallons in 2010.
2010 rates remained unchanged in 13 of the 51 cities, from
the East to the Midwest, to the South and Southwest.
Among the 51 cities, the average cost per 1,000 gallons was
$3.32 per month.
No city dropped its rates in 2010 from 2009 levels.
Water rates are very much a local, as opposed to global, sup-
ply and demand issue, says Maxwell. That's an important consider-
ation. Rates can be wildly divergent between two geographic areas.
