Why isn't california using the same technology people use for almost every other scarce resource? Markets. If you raise the price of water, people will start using less. I suspect there are some political reasons why this is not happening.
> As David Zetland points out in an excellent interview with Russ Roberts, people in San Diego county use around 150 gallons of water a day. Meanwhile in Sydney Australia, with a roughly comparable climate and standard of living, people use about half that amount. Trust me, no one in Sydney is going thirsty.
> So how much are people in San Diego paying for their daily use of 150 gallons of water? About 78 cents.
That is indeed quite cheap if water is supposed to be scarce. (I don't quite see why you're downvoted.)
78 cents per 150 gallons is $1.37 per cubic meter. Here in North Europe, where we have no shortage of water whatsoever, we pay €1.34 per cubic meter. In addition to that we pay €1.66 per cubic meter as "wastewater management fee" (and yes, you have to pay wastewater management fee even for water that you use for watering plants, something that doesn't need wastewater management at all).
So, San Diego residents pay less than half the price of here? Wow.
(Not that the more than double cost would be a problem here, as the average consumption per person is 100-150 litres depending on whether people live in detached houses or blocks of flats. People in blocks of flats consume much more water on average, and even that is only about a quarter of the San Diego figure you quoted.)
On residential water bills the wastewater fees are a separate line item. In Santa Cruz there is a fixed fee for water delivery based on the size of the pipe (fee is independent of how much water you consume), a tiered fee based on consumption, and another fee for wastewater that is fixed tied to the household.
The fixed fees are very high. If I halved my water consumption then it would only save a dollar or so a month. The net effect is that the people who consume the least pay the most for the water they consume because of the high fixed fees. Here is my municipal bill for June last year:
17.41 Water - Ready to Serve 5/8"
4.71 Water Consumption Charges (3 CCF): 3 CCF @ 1.57
42.30 Sewer - Single Family
26.05 Refuse - 32 Gallon Cart
7.69 Utility Tax @8.5%
5.06 Franchise Tax - Water 3%,Sewer 3%,Refuse 12%
The water consumption does have tiered pricing, with a penalty above 10 CCF/month. As you can clearly see there isn't any incentive to save. I was also renting at the time, and couldn't do things like install more water efficient plumbing, fixtures and appliances (standard limits in rental agreements).
The price in Finland for cold water is about $4.50 (4.18€) per cubic meter, even though water is supposed to be abundant here. And the average water consumption is 165 liters, which is about 44 gallons.
They probably didn't include the wastewater fee in that calculation. Here in Oakland we pay that same fee.
Here's my last bill:
WATER SERVICE CHARGE: 29.38
WATER FLOW CHARGE 7 UNITS @2.91: 20.37
SEISMIC IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM SURCHARGE: 5.48
WASTEWATER TREATMENT CHARGE: 34.17
SF BAY POLLUTION PREVENTION FEE: 0.40
That's for 83 gallons of day for 3 adults over the last two months. Yeah, we have room to improve for sure!
Also, if farmers are blowing $100 of water to produce $5 of crops, that suggests some kind of "use it or lose it" system is going on, which means it can be eliminated without taking anyone's rights; rather, just give them the right to sell it, at which point significant water is freed up.
But I don't know the water rights system well enough to know if we're in that kind of situation.
Because it is government controlled mainly, and at each level (state, district, municipal) there are way too many squabbling parties that would need to agree.
