By John Young, Chair of Orange Water and Sewer Authority Board of Directors:

Have you seen the wave of headlines about the water crisis in California? Of course you have. I sympathize with the communities and agencies that must confront the grim situation and create the solutions for it. This won’t get solved overnight, but let’s hope for some relief sooner rather than later.

At the same time, I am thankful the water situation in our community is not making headlines. Our local water supplies are in excellent shape. In fact, the reservoirs are 95% full today.

What’s the secret sauce? Water conservation. Your water conservation.

If you’ve lived here since 1991, you couldn’t have missed the new homes, buildings, and cars in Chapel Hill and Carrboro. The number of customers OWASA serves has grown more than 65% in these 24 years.

For the first eight years of that stretch, our community’s water consumption closely tracked the growth in OWASA customers. Then, in 2000, the consumption pattern took a sharp turn: more and more customers, yet less and less consumption.

Today, our community is consuming less total water than we consumed in 1991. Amazing! Talk about #FlashbackFriday!

This is a headline that deserves to stand next to the headlines about California. Let’s give a big shout-out to community members like you for their steady commitment to conservation. On average, each customer is consuming 40% less than they did in 1991. This stretches our water resources so we can more easily cope with stressful water conditions.

We also use less energy to run our pumps and less chemicals to treat our water and wastewater. The planet and I thank you, again.

Rate increases are part of the headlines in California, too. Why do rate increases go hand-in-hand with drought restrictions and conservation?

Think of those miles of pipe in the ground upon which you rely and which must stay in good condition. Water utilities have very high fixed costs. Inevitably, lower consumption leads to revenue gaps, which in turn leads to pressure to increase rates per gallon.

The headlines in California tell us to expect double-digit percentage rate increases there. Some customers complain that they are asked to conserve and then penalized for doing so.

In my opinion, however, the headlines and stories about rates often mislead us.

You see, if the community conserves more, OWASA’s and other utilities’ total costs don’t go up because of it. They actually go down slightly. For example, we use less energy to run our pumps and less chemicals to treat our water and wastewater. This means we don’t need to collect more revenue in total to support conservation. Average bills don’t need to go up because of conservation. Conservation is a win for our collective budgets, a win for drought resiliency, and a win for the planet.

Somewhere in history, most of the world decided that water should be priced as an ordinary commodity, by the gallon. Imagine instead if the world had decided to look at water as a service, rather than a widget. I encourage you to look at water as a service and consider what your final monthly bill looks like for access to high-quality water in the amounts you need.

But, yes indeed, with fewer gallons consumed, the rate per gallon often goes up. And, unfortunately, if your household doesn’t or can’t keep pace with conservation of the community, your monthly bill might be one that goes up while others see steady or even lower bills. If you are looking for ideas about conservation and reducing your monthly bill, I encourage you to turn to the team at OWASA or the website for conservation ideas and best practices.

(Hmm, in case you are wondering, I am not trying to justify rate increases so that OWASA can sneak more money into the pockets of shareholders. OWASA doesn’t have shareholders. OWASA is a publicly owned utility. We work for this community. Because OWASA does not receive subsidies from tax dollars, our revenue from bills must match our costs.)

Fortunately for OWASA customers, we’ve been able to avoid increases in monthly rates for 4 years running. Because of your conservation, we are also able to push out the time horizon for new investments water treatment facilities, wastewater treatment facilities, and reservoirs. And that will help keep your bills lower for the long term.