Would You Rather...Pay Your Neighbor's Water Bill or Your Own?

Budgets were tight and demands were high for many California water districts even before Governor Brown issued the mandate that all cities must cut water usage by 25-30%. Now, with less revenue coming in than ever before, how are utilities going to balance their budgets?

Logic says they will cover their bills and new rebate programs by raising water rates and issuing fines.

Pay more, get less

There have been conversations at the State level regarding how water districts are going to pay for millions of dollars in rebates and make up for lost revenue from reduction in water sales. My source in California water administration tells me that districts are considering a rate increase around 30% and news from the Bay area confirms that.

Meanwhile, the L.A. Times reported recently that Governor Brown is pushing for fines of up to $10,000 per day for the worst water wasters. It’s only logical that rather than focus on small properties with minimal fines, water agencies will target high profile commercial properties – like banks, gas stations, apartments, and retail – with locations on every corner and the money to afford heavy fines.

So the money you pay in fines and increased water costs may pay for your neighbor to remove their turf or upgrade their irrigation system so they can avoid fines and increased costs. Does that sound fair?

What’s the alternative?

In order to avoid fines, your property must comply with frequently changing local water restrictions. So you could pay someone to constantly monitor and reprogram your irrigation controller to stay compliant. Or you could remove all of your landscaping so you have nothing to water.

But I have a better idea. By upgrading the irrigation system on your commercial property to a weather-based smart controller with cloud-based monitoring and reporting, you can keep your beautiful landscape while reducing water usage by up to 50% – easily surpassing the mandated 25%. You can pay for your neighbor’s upgrade through fines or you can pay for your own upgrade and never face a fine again.

Where do we begin?

Weathermatic offers flexible alternatives to rapidly deploy a large-scale water conservation program with the total expense of $4,000 or less per property. In just over a year, one Weathermatic customer alone saved over $2 million dollars and half a billion gallons of water! 

California commercial properties have an immediate opportunity to demonstrate environmental and community leadership through water conservation. I hope you’ll give serious consideration to immediately executing a meaningful water conservation program with Weathermatic. Whether for reasons of corporate social responsibility, financial returns, asset management, regulatory compliance, or all the above, a heightened level of water management is the right thing to do, and NOW is not too late. 

If you liked this post, keep an eye out for my next post on the pros and cons of California's turf removal rebates.

This was written by Weathermatic CEO Mike Mason, who, after a mission trip to El Salvador was faced with the reality of the global water crisis and came home ready to make a change in the highly inefficient irrigation industry. Mason committed to providing tech-based solutions to increase efficiency in irrigation, as well as forming Weathermatic’s Save Water | Give Life program.