DROUGHT: ROUNDING UP THE UNUSUAL SUSPECTS

"But I don't want to go among mad people", Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."

----Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

In the 1930s, the center of the United States became the "Dust Bowl" due to prolonged and pervasive drought. The dust was farmland topsoil wind eroded and blown away in dust storms, along with hopes and livelihoods of farm families. As memorialized in John Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath", migrant workers and farmers displaced by years of Dust Bowl misery relocated to perceived better times in California.

Now, portions of California and several other western states are experiencing prolonged and pervasive drought which is stressing and displacing lifestyles and livelihoods of residents. Moreover, much of California is naturally dry, and is dependent upon external water sources to sustain population centers and irrigation agriculture. So, the choice now is becoming one of serious reduction in water use or migrating elsewhere, perhaps even back to the center of the country.

The usual approaches to reducing water use have been well publicized, such as
* recycling wastewater
* prohibiting yard watering
* mandating utilities to reduce water deliveries
* mandating reductions in farm irrigation
* requiring installation of low flow water appliances
* adopting inverse rate blocks that rise with volume

These "usual" approaches may produce some success, but perhaps some more "unusual" approaches could also help.

For example, on June 24, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced a partnership that would invest millions of dollars to restore the Sierra-Cascade California Headwaters, which is the water source for agriculture and some 25 million residents.

One of the most dramatic periods of conservation in the Unites states was during World War II, when many materials and foods were needed for the war effort, forcing citizens to conserve. Two aspects come to mind: (1) citizens were well educated as to the need to conserve resources; and (2) many items were rationed, a form of mandatory conservation. Could these two aspects be applied to help reduce water demand in drought environments? For example, could a per capital standard of average daily water use be established for households, with high volumetric rates applied to excess monthly use?

Agriculture can pose a more difficult issue. There is a significant difference, obviously, between land that produces annual crops such as corn and land that is used for orchards of fruit and nut trees that take years to mature. Perhaps some land can be taken out of temporary production, with governmental financial assistance. Or, irrigation rights temporarily waived or reduced. However, some farms may have contractual water rights which would likely require mutual consent for reductions.

One unique source of additional water could be human sweat. A Swedish engineer created a device to harvest sweat from clothing and to purify it to drinking water. A sweaty T-shirt is said to have produced two teaspoons of clean water. However, sweaty socks may be more productive. A pair of human feet is said to yield a half-pint of sweat every day. If true, sixteen pairs of socks could yield one gallon a day. Perhaps, here is an opportunity for another government program to establish a sock exchange where people would bring in dripping socks and pick up dry ones.*

Two other solutions may be available. If people in California do not like the drought and water use limitations, they might consider moving to the Midwest, where there has been so much record-breaking rain this year that it is a "Flood Bowl."

Or, if people want to stay in California and want more rain, why not just ask God?

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* Festa, "Sweat", Discover, July/August,2015, p.98

DROUGHT: WATER UTILITIES CONFRONT CONFLICTING POLICIES

"If you don't know where you are going any road can take you there."

---- Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

The photo depicts the arid wonderland of the South Dakota Badlands. They are a drought stricken moonscape that stands in dramatic contrast to the verdant Black Hills 50 miles to the west.

The Badlands once were full of rich vegetation and animal life also. Fossils evidence now extinct critters such as sabre tooth tigers, sheep-like oredonts, rhinos and miniature horse. At another time, the landscape was under water.

Some have asserted that parts of California naturally are arid and subject to drought--where farming must depend upon irrigation and cities on water sources located elsewhere. Whether current drought conditions in California and other states may be due to climate changes or temporary weather conditions, water utilities must deal with drought in some rational manner. Unfortunately, they can confront conflicting policies that make rational solutions difficult. Some of these policy conflicts include the following:

* Legal Duty To Serve vs. Service Restrictions. Generally, water utilities have a monopoly in their given service areas. This is because of the costly infrastructure required to provide water service; rarely are there competing water utilities within the same service are. For their monopoly status, water utilities incur certain obligations: whether by statute or by court decision, water utilities generally are required to satisfy the water demands of customers within their service areas. This obligation likely can be expected to apply to both investor-owned utilities and to municipal-owned utilities.

However, there can be a conflicting policy when, for example, state or local governments seek to impose restrictions on the amount of water utilities may deliver to their customers. The restrictive regulation limiting water delivery can clash with the legal obligation to serve customer water requirements.

* Higher Rates To Force Conservation vs. Cost Of Service Ratemaking. Some have urged dramatic increases in rates, such as inclining rate blocks as volume of water delivered increases, as a way of forcing reductions in water usage. However, while such measures may appear to have merit from the standpoint of objective, they can clash with applicable legal requirements that to be reasonable, rates must be based upon costs of service.

* Higher Rates To Force Conservation vs. Affordability. Some have argued that higher rates will enable "market forces" to naturally enable the desired reductions in water usage, and thus conservation. However, such a policy may well conflict with the notion of affordability of water. While "affordability" is not a precise concept, one can assume that higher water rates will take a larger chunk out of low income earner budgets. Moreover, affluent customers may feel no pain from higher rates and continue to use their typical amounts of water, thereby reducing the effectiveness of the conservation effort.

* Higher Rates To Force Conservation vs. Reductions In Revenue. Assuming that increased rates are successful in creating reductions in usage, the end result of conservation may also be a reduction of needed revenue to the utility as eell as excess treatment and delivery capacity that still must be funded--pushing rates still higher or forcing excess capacity to be abandoned as no longer used and us full.

* Contracts vs. Abrogation Of Contracts. A water utility serves customers pursuant to contract, which includes the tariffs of a regulated utility and ordinances of a municipal utility. However, if a governmental authority imposes service restrictions, does such an action also abrogate the contracts between utility and its customers?

For water utilities in limited source water environments, determining the best road to travel can be perplexing and full of potholes of policy conflicts. Indeed, the best destination may not be clear. It may seem that the only road available could be a circle.