As the saying goes, "when the punishment is money, it's only a punishment for the poor."
There are plenty of mega-wealthy people in California who would pay the premium to maintain their image of wealth, no matter how large. It may raise more money, but I can't imagine that it would deter consumption much, as it's already the rich using the most water.
>There are plenty of mega-wealthy people in California who would pay the premium to maintain their image of wealth, no matter how large.
Good. The money they're paying for water can now fund projects to get more water for everyone else (eg. desalination plants, water diversion, or buying water rights from current farmers).
The goal isn't to "stop them from using up the water", it's to charge them the true price of providing that water, and charging a bit extra so we can subsidize the price of water for the poor.
I think this premise is sufficient in any scenario where there are disparities in the distribution of a plentiful resource, as is the case in countries with privatized water.
However, when the resource is no longer plentiful, it is unwise to try the "let the market fix it" route (always a popular one on HN), because the resource in question can be consumed much faster than the systems you are describing can combat it (or can even be gotten off the ground.)
>However, when the resource is no longer plentiful
My previous comment mentioned acquisition methods up to and including desalination, which would make the resource virtually unlimited. If the rich want to water their huge mansion grounds and are willing to pay for a desalination plant to do it, why stop them? If they're willing to do that, and we can take a portion of that money to subsidize water supply for the poor, all the better.
I'm genuinely curious - what are the economics like for desalination plants? I feel like we'd see a lot more of them if they were viable, but maybe we're just horrible at planning and fixing things.
There are plenty of environmental issues associated with desalination, it's not a get out of jail free card. Obviously energy use (and even if that energy comes from solar it's not completely free of consequences) but also the brine from desalination can cause significant local salinity issues which damages aquatic life.
All of those issues can be addressed with money, which is presumably not an issue because the original premise of this thread is that the rich will gladly pay the steep costs.
No. The idea is to charge them enough for their water that you can afford sources that are expensive but won't run out (e.g., desalination) to provide it.
> when the punishment is money, it's only a punishment for the poor.
This is true, but only because the amount of fines are typically identical regardless of income/wealth. Fines should be based on a percentage of income/wealth. A poor person being fined $1000 may end up homeless as a result. For a rich person, $1000 would, at most, be annoying and depending on how rich, might not be noticed even as much as that same poor person accidentally dropping a penny and being unable to retrieve it. Fine the rich person a more equivalent $100K, $1M or $100M, and their compliance level would increase dramatically.
Fixed monetary fines brings to mind this quote:
“In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread.” — Anatole France
> "when the punishment is money, it's only a punishment for the poor."
And there is nothing wrong with that: if you are poor and waste 10000 gal watering your lawn during draught, you should be punished because your are just as anti-social as the millionaire next door.
I'm ok with that as long as there exists a free/low cost tire that covers the basic necessities of a regular family, so that even the poor are guaranteed a certain level of service.
Sure, but your complaint is that it's punishing the poor.
The reason we need to properly price water isn't to increase costs for municipal use. Those rates can stay the same, or even be reduced.
The problem is that the agricultural sector is paying a fraction of the prices that municipalities pay -- or in some cases they are paying nothing at all.
My complaint isn't that it punishes the poor, it's that it doesn't deter the rich, who are - in the context of the article - the primary issue. I just invoked an old saying to draw attention to the disparity. A tiered pricing model would likely not change anything for the poor.
Agriculture and overuse of water is a different discussion that this restrictor does not presume to address.
The rich aren't the primary issue, though. The total water used by wealthy people in their own homes is utterly negligible.
The article cites celebs like Kevin Hart, who has used (gasp) 150% of what LA would prefer him to use. This is simply a non-issue. It does not need to be addressed, at all.
What is the distribution of total consumption by income range?
Yes, the rich use more water per capita, but there aren't all that many rich people compared to the rest of the population. Does the top 1% of the income distribution use more water (in total) than the bottom 99%?
There are plenty of mega-wealthy people in California who would pay the premium to maintain their image of wealth, no matter how large. It may raise more money, but I can't imagine that it would deter consumption much, as it's already the rich using the most water.