Water pricing

Drought-Stricken South Facing Tough Choices:

Last week, Mayor Charles L. Turner of Siler City declared a water shortage emergency and ordered each “household, business and industry” to reduce water use by 50 percent. Penalties for not complying range from stiff fines to the termination of water service.

“It’s really alarming,” said Janice Terry, co-owner of the Best Foods cafeteria in Siler City. To curtail water use, Best Foods has swapped its dishes for paper plates and foam cups.

Most controversially, it has stopped offering tap water to customers, making them buy 69-cent bottles of water instead. “We’ve had people walk out,” Ms. Terry said. “They get mad when they can’t get a free glass of water.”

The time to implement effective water pricing is before the emergency.

Comments

[Brian Jackson]

I can see the headline: Bottled water, paper plates and Styrofoam cups fix local environmental problem. What next? Global warming cured by blasting A/C in Hummer.

[another john whitehead]

my freshman year roommate and I actually convinced some naive girls at the university that UPS drivers kept their doors open for precisely that reason: cool down the hot summer air temperature with their A/C.

I try to be a little more helpful these days and not spread misinformation.