John MacDonald: Excess water charges a problematic solution for Christchurch

Christchurch is well known as the garden city. Photo / Devon Bolger

OPINION

The water sprinklers probably aren't going to get that much action this week, with the storm that's due to come through late tonight.

But, as night follows day, the storm will pass and we will eventually get to the point where there is less rain and you'll start wanting to water the vege garden and water the lawn and maybe even strip off and run under the sprinkler.

And, as of the weekend just gone, if you do too much of that and you pay your rates to the Christchurch City Council - you'll have to pay its new excess water charge.

It came into force on Saturday and, if you use more water than you're supposed to, you can look forward to the bill (or the fine) arriving in your mailbox sometime in late January.

So, as of right now, you can use 700 litres of water a day without getting charged more.

But for every extra 1000 litres you use, you'll be charged $1.35.

I was reading of a case recently where someone in Avonhead discovered they had two leaks on their property, got them fixed and reduced their water consumption by 42,000 litres a day.

Which is lucky for them because, under the new rules, they'd be charged an extra $55 a day.

Now that's probably an extreme case, but that is a real example of a household here in Christchurch that would've had to pay an extra $1600 a month to the council if it hadn't got the leaks fixed.

Which is why we got a letter from the council recently saying our water use was high and we should check if we've got a leak.

We did have a leak a wee while ago. It's been fixed and I'm picking they did their check on our water use before we'd got it fixed.

Now the city council has been saying that it thinks charging people for using excess water is a good idea because, where this sort of thing has been done elsewhere in the country, water use has dropped by 20-to-30 per cent.

Now that has to be a good thing, but is it the best way of going about it?

It seems, doesn't it, that councils and the government always go straight to threatening the stick instead of dangling the carrot when it comes to changing behaviours that are perceived to be bad, especially behaviours that are bad for the environment.

A non-water example would be this ridiculous idea the city council has in its big Transport Plan to fine companies and employers that provide car parks for their staff, because it thinks companies that do this are encouraging people to use cars.

This water thing is the same.

"You can't keep using water like it's going out of fashion, so we're going to fine you for using too much."

Which probably sounds like the right thing to do when you're sitting in front of the whiteboard at council HQ. But is it really?

Wouldn't it be better if we just knew from the outset that we had to pay for every drop of water we use and if we want to pay less, we just use less.

I know this wouldn't fix the inequity in this new system where a household of two can probably water their garden as much as they want and not be fined for excess use, but a family with three kids which do a lot more washing and a lot more showering are sitting ducks for excess charges.

But if we all paid for what we use, then we'd treat it the same as electricity, wouldn't we? If you want to pay less for power, there are ways you can do that. Turn the lights off, find more efficient ways to heat the house - that sort of thing.

And I know I would think twice about using water if I knew I was getting charged for every drop - and not just fined for using more than the council says I should.

Which is why I think a pure user-pays model - as they do in other parts of the country and other parts of the world - would be a much better way of getting us to reduce our overall water consumption.

Because other things the council has tried, like banning the use of sprinklers during certain hours during the summer months, have been pointless.

How many times have you seen the lawn enthusiast down the road blasting out the water when they shouldn't be? And have you done anything about it? Of course you haven't - because we New Zealanders, we don't like to cause a fuss, so we turn a blind eye.

So the Christchurch City Council thinks the solution to that, is to charge us if we use more than it thinks we should. I disagree and think it would be fairer if the council charged us all for the water we actually use, instead of penalising some of us for using too much.