Meters make sense as a way to solve water woes

While local body politicians have poured millions into vanity projects over the years, our water infrastructure has been allowed to run down, with services outsourced and problems often badly managed. So, what do you do if you are the organisation responsible for dealing with polluted streams and harbours, burst pipes, out-of-control leaks, tonnes of sewage and dirty water that must be carted across Wellington 24/7? You call an international PR company which specialises in ‘‘crisis management’’, of course.

This latest travesty, or should that be SweeneyTravesty, comes when thousands of Wellingtonians want Wellington Water’s crisis management to consist of unfashionable workers with unfashionable, non-corporate picks and shovels getting down in the mud and sewage in order to find the source of our water problems.

While we have this ridiculous situation, it’s very difficult to argue in favour of water meters, as opponents can simply say, ‘‘Of course we need water meters, how else does Wellington Water irrigate expensive PR companies with cash?’’

This is a great pity, because even though things like water meters were originally promoted by the Right-wing, neo-liberals of the 1980s, making users pay for a finite resource has merit from an ecological point of view.

Despite this, water meters have been opposed by many on the Left, the logic being that access to water is a basic human right, and if you charge for water you might as well charge for air. Others, like Wellington city councillor Iona Pannett, see the metering of water leading to privatisation. I’m not sure I agree, as privatisation and metering don’t have to be linked.

When electricity was publicly owned, it was metered, and no-one much complained because electricity was relatively cheap. Now that electricity is privately owned, it is still metered. It is not the metering that causes outrageous electricity prices, but the profiteers who own the electricity companies.

If you know exactly how much water you use, and must pay accordingly if you use a lot, then you are far less likely to waste it. And most New

Zealanders are amazed when they find out how much water they consume.

Our annual water consumption, compared to many countries, is massive. It is true, as former prime minister Geoffrey Palmer once famously said, that we are a pluvial nation, but the recent problems with Wellington Water have shown that our water supply is neither infinite nor cheap.

A lot of the water we use irrigates our gardens or cleans our cars. We need to have a serious conversation about whether that water needs to be drinkable, as it is now.

Are Wellingtonians capable of conserving water? Hell yeah. A few years back, the region was facing a serious shortage. We were asked to voluntarily save water and passed with flying colours, achieving a significant decrease in usage with comparatively little effort.

So, would water meters be a great idea? They are certainly worth investigating. Then again, our council got us into this mess, so aren’t water meters just a way of getting the poor old ratepayer to foot the bill for their incompetence, not to mention PR companies? Perhaps. But if we had a big civic campaign to conserve water, including the council helping with rainwater collection, as well as incentives to use grey water on gardens and cars, then more of us might be persuaded to give metering a go.

Some councillors rightly worry that water meters could hurt people on fixed or low incomes. They could hurt if they were crudely and unfairly implemented, but there are ways to avoid this. Ratepayers could receive a reasonable amount of free water – perhaps also depending on the number in the dwelling. It would only be if you exceeded that amount that you paid more. Of course, people on low incomes with swimming pools to fill or multiple cars to wash may face problems.

And businesses should not get corporate welfare. If you take out the free water that some big companies receive – and it is not free, as the rest of us are paying for it – then some of our enterprises are not as viable or as profitable as they lead us to believe. See ‘‘Canterbury – dairy farming in’’.

As long as it is equitable, metering could lead to a drop in both consumption and wastage of water. The increased revenue could be used to improve our infrastructure and fix leaks. But it must be done in tandem with strategies to lower consumption and improve efficiency.

But let’s not stop there. A small meter, or toll, on Transmission Gully could pay for all the extra money taxpayers are donating to the contractors who have delivered late and over budget.

And a meter for every user of the new convention centre, as well as other city vanity projects, could recover a small part of the very large amount that I believe this behemoth will cost the city.

If you know exactly how much water you use, and must pay accordingly if you use a lot, then you are far less likely to waste it.