2% of the water that did not leak away i.e. a little over 1% of the total water produced in Ireland was used by the domestic consumer.

Ive seen some rough figures and the average domestic use in good practise Holland is 125litres/week/person while here it is 160litres/week/person.

So essentially what is being proposed here is that if Irish consumers reduce their water usage by 28% of their 1% share, thereby making available 0.28% more water everything will be fine.

Does anyone get the feeling this government is idealogy bankrupt?

There appears to be some confusion about the amount of water consumed by a typical customer, and what is meant by wastage, leakage and unaccounted-for-water.

It might help to think of the water that is supplied to the house as being used in three (3) ways. It is either used directly by the customer, or it is knowingly (and visibly) wasted by the customer, or it is unwittingly wasted by the customer. The responsible customer will try to avoid knowingly wasting water (letting the tap flow etc), but may be totally unaware of the leakage that is happening in his or her property between the road and kitchen sink. It is only with the introduction of a meter at the property boundary will the customer be able to capture all water consumption and then do something about leaks as they emerge.

From the limited data available in Ireland it is becoming increasingly apparent that the customer-side leakage is a lot higher than anybody realised. This is not the customer’s fault as such, because many of these leaks are hidden underground. They may only exhibit as a soft area in the lawn, or a crack in the garage wall, or low pressure in the water at the kitchen sink. Crucially, only in the most extreme cases do they cut the entire supply to the house.

The likelihood is that a nationwide metering programme will help network managers and customers to identify leaks more quickly and save us all the huge expense of producing water that is never used. We can’t say that all of the leakage is on the customer’s side or on the local authority’s side of the stop-tap, but we can say that both the local authority and the customer have a burden of responsibility to chase and fix leaks.

I have written extensively on this subject in the Irish Examiner and the Sunday Business Post, and on my blog at blog.kevinjmurray.com. These comments come from my experience of several years as a Chartered Engineer engaged in the non-domestic metering programme in Ireland.

Kevin Murray

Most houses are metered now, and while those who remain can’t be forced to change from a fixed charge (here water meters are interior probably because they would stick in the winter), if you want any work done on your water service like a wider inlet you have to accept one. The new meters are wireless so you don’t have to phone in a reading.

The water is not private here - it is operated by an Agency of the City of Toronto and thus keeps separate books but remains in public ownership. Production is between 1 and 1.5 billion litres per day. There is great sensitivity here about water production ever since Walkerton but that was not a privatisation issue so much as government refusing to do its primary duty which is regulation.

Fair enough that not all leaks are visible. However, I am not convinced that it is efficient to put a meter on every house to identify leaks.

In a dream metering set-up you would have a meter on every house and meters for groups of houses and all would feed data in an accessible format into a central water management infomation system that would be properly designed and configured. All house meters would be associated with the entry meter for that group of houses and the exit meter for that groups of houses.

Vol [Entry Grp] - Vol [Exit Grp] - SUM [Hse Group] = Local Authority pipe leakage.

That is a dream scenario with no cost/benefit analysis and no measurements against alternatives. It also doesn’t identify what the priority aspects of water sourcing, treatment, transport, use, wastage and disposal. It would fit in well with the kind of tunnel visioned projects which the civil service has perfected over the last number of years.

As for privatisation, where do we begin? The commitment to infrastructure; ownership of infrastructure, maintenance of infrastructure; development of infrastructure; guaranteed returns on investment; profit motive; regulatory arbitrage; contractual risk; lack of state influence over input costs for business; monopolies; divergence between different areas; rural areas uneconomic to serve etc etc etc.

Not sure if anyone will take the bait this time either. There seems to be a weariness among the academics since this solution is seen as a “no-brainer”, but among politicians, policy-makers and interested parties (both professional and in civil society) “rationalisation and privatisation” seem to have the mark of the devil. The Eircom debacle retains a malign impact, selling the “family silver” in a “fire-sale” is a frequent debate-killer, the extent of the effort required (and the vested interests that would have to be squared) is an enthusiasm-deadener and the experience in Britain isn’t a wonderful ad.

However, it would make sense to have an informed and open debate about the semi-states and infrastructure and utility services. The current approach is inefficient, wasteful and excessively costly for citizens and the economy. The false boom during the last decade helped to conceal this. Now that boom has turned to bust and the state must seek to deleverage its balance sheet (however defined), this inefficiency, waste and excessive cost may be sustained no longer.

@zhou - not all leaks are visible i.e. water might not come to the surface.

I made the point above - but nobody took the bait - so I make it again. The water sector should be rationalised and privatized. Regulated properly (I know its a big proviso) it will have an inventive to reduce leaks as they would cost the industry and not the consumer.

I meter on every house and on groups of houses surely would identify leaks. However, is it the most cost efficient way of doing so? Where is the leak report website? Where is the leak hotline? Where is the communications drive?

Also, what are the maintenance costs down the line? Is it the case that installing meters and making them the responsibility of householders is another way of imposing a flat tax on those who can least afford it?

After that, where is the guarantee of transparency of publication of metering data? How do we know it will be acted on and the money will be allocated to fixing all the leaks? Will it not be the case that the same amount of money will be allocated and only so many leaks can be fixed?

As for the Tipp South / Kilkenny differential - another possibility is that the data is faulty for one reason or another. I recall there was water contamination in Tipp South in the last couple of years.

“There is a genuine chance the Government could fall over this.”

Given the measured and reflective tone of your comments on this blog, the portentous nature of this takes one aback. But I think you may be on to something. With unreformed local authorities applying any form of water charges is like putting lipstick on a pig. Minister Gormley just wants to smear it on; some of the economists here wish to apply it more precisely in the expectation that it will have a catalytic effect on public opinion.

I don’t think the Government will fall. Too much effort has been put in to get to this point. Expect some sort of fudge.

The idea that people in South Tipperary are wasting twice as much water in their homes as Kilkenny people is obviously nonsense. The idea that imposing water charges is going to stimulate local authority reform in South Tipperary becaue the people are angry and are not going to take it any more is genuinely comical. Maybe they will place on embargo on water going to those gobsheens in Dublin like BJG would like to do . Now that’s what I call local action!

If the difference between Kilkenny and South Tipp is an illustration of the case for water charges then we are on very shaky ground. There is a genuine chance the Government could fall over this.

THe govt should have installed a grey main alongside the blue main in the building boom and while replacing mains install a grey main so untreated water can be supplied for those high usage items where flouridated, chlorinated potable water just isn’t necessary.

Also a co.co worker wrote a letter to the irish times during the week stating that the Dublin area had only a 2% margin in treatment capacity. This shows complete incompetence by the national and local governments. What organisations would be uniquely knowledgeable about the extra housing and business needs in their area? they give planning permission to these new developments…….

The same council worker threw in the strawman argument about a dry summer causing water shortages even though the current shortages in the Dublin area are because the output of the treatment plants are not able to supply demand; not because the input to the treatment plants are unable to meet demand.
He was quoted again claiming that most of the leaks in the mains supply was likely to be between the likely meter location and the household/business.

Oh yeah, vote in the gombeen that got them a passport quickly and got Mrs. O’Grady’s daughter moved up the social housing list. Lovely fellow. Keeps a stoat warm just with the power of his head. Drives a merc, you know, so he must be important. The Taoiseach drives one of those. I’ve always voted for him…

It will take more than expensive water to jolt the few grateful-dead who bother to vote in local elections out of their fairytale. Of more concern is whether the indolent majority who don’t bother to vote will spring into action heralding a new dawn in political representation. If you could afford to water-board me, I like to think I still wouldn’t give you an answer…

PS Look at council tax in the UK. It is not a good that can be substituted or shopped around for.

Charging for all water and returning part of the revenue as cash can easily be done per person: raise benefits, pensions, child benefits and tax credits — although Seamus Coffey rightly argues that you won’t reach everybody.

I don’t know whether you and your friends “waste” water but, if you’re in Dublin, I’d be happy for you to waste your own, without having to steal extra water from us Shannonsiders. As it is, the Dublin water authorities, who (pace Paul Hunt) do work together and engage in long-term strastegic planning, think Dublin and district will run short of water soon. So they’ve been planning, for many years, to do something about it. Which will cost money.

Anyone wanting to learn about Dublin’s impending water shortage should boogie on over to http://www.watersupplyproject-dublinregion.ie/

Now, if only decentralisation had gone ahead properly, the problem could have been avoided; those exiled from Dublin would have found plenty of water in Ballinasloe.

bjg

Such huge disparities between local authority areas suggests that wastage has more to do with the local authorities record in maintaining pipes than with wildly differing behaviour of householders.

Many leakages occur in Local Authority pipes, in commercial lands (including incomplete developments), in unoccupied and untended lands and on farms.

Is there empirical evidence that imposing water charges on residential users will substantially address water wastage?

One would hope that Local Authorities have more granular data from all those meters that froze and cut off water supply to thousands of people during the recent cold snap!

“If you have a smart meter in every household, then you can work out where the leaks are.”

The statement above is wrong unless you only mean leaks on the consumers side past the meter. No amount of household and business meters, whether smart or dumb will tell you anything about the spatial location of leaks in a water distribution system if these are the only meters apart from the meters at the outlets from the treatment plants. In that case you would have some idea of leakage in the entire system but no information about where that leakage is happening. If this doesn’t make sense think of a very long buried pipe with leaks where you are measuring the water going in at one end and the water coming out at the other. Subtracting water out from water in equals water leaked, but that won’t tell you where it is leaking.

In fact locating leakage requires a technique called district metering which involves putting meters on the distribution watermains at places where you can make all of the water entering a small enough area during the night pass through the meter. Smart consumer meters wouldn’t help much, if at all, because you need to do your measurements at night when consumption is low. That is shown by the fact that district metering to determine local leakage has been pioneered by the Water Authorities in the UK, one of the few developed countries where residential metering is not widespread.

More generally water supply practitioners have moved on from simple leakage models. The modern methodology refers to unaccounted-for-water, of which leakage is only part.

One thing that is striking about the original post and the subsequent comments is how little knowledge is displayed about real water supply systems. It reminds me of an old joke about an economist on a desert island whose punch line is “assume a can opener”. If anyone out there wants a good introduction to the worldwide organization of water supply services including economic aspects, they could try “Institutional Governance and Regulation of Water Services” (2007, International Water Association) by Michael Rouse, formerly Head of the Drinking Water Inspectorate in London.

Who are these water wasters? I don’t know of anybody who I would say uses an excessive amoutn of water. We are not exactly a nation of avid car washers like our neighbours across the water. I am sure there are some crazy sprinkler users out there at the height of our arid summers but I am not familiar with any such people.

Unless you make the cost of water explicit there will be no incentive to cut down - those who use it sparingly will subsidise the wasters. I can’t see any reason why I should subsidise wasters!

@John/TOD
A water charge per house is silly. Houses don’t use water. People do. A water charge per house is regressive, it does not reduce waste, and it does not increase accountability.

“The easy way to deal with this is just include the water charge in the forth comming property tax based on the size of a house. Then we can save a lot on all the costs in the current scheme.”

could not agree more amalgamate the two charges (property and waters) into one and cut down on the admin side!!

still have to make the comment that in my simple mind it beggars belief that we are even talking about water shortages in this damp wet place

I don’t know if it will reduce the cost of treatment.

It depends on a number of factors:
1. How much water is being wasted through over-use.
2. How much water is being wasted through leaks in local authority pipes (including local authority housing and accommodation).
3. How much capacity we have for treating water.
4. How many water treatment plants we have that will have to be upgraded one way or another.
5. How much more it costs to run at greater capacity of one is running at high capacity.
6. How much capacity we will require for treating water if water charges are effective.
7. How much capacity for treating water we will require if water charges are ineffective or are not brought in.
8. How much it would cost to identify water wastage without bringing in charges.
9. How motivated and how effective local authorities will be to improve water facilities if charges are brought in and rates drop.
10. How much more competent and efficient our local authorities will become as a result of having additional money to spend on water treatment .

In any event, water is a utility and the most equitable way of charging for utilities is through taxes. Increasing the cost of healthcase could reduce the numbers of people attending our hospitals. Increasing the cost of public transport could reduce the numbers using buses and therefore the number of buses we require.

The real justification for water charges can only be that over-use of water is degrading the water table and therefore we are facing a water shortage. I think water charges are a good idea in that case once the meters have been put in everywhere and there is transparency as to where the real water wastage is.

“The cost of water treatment is not relevant as we are paying for that with our taxes.”

Surely the cost of treating the water is related to how much has to be treated? Therefore shifting the method of paying for it from central taxation to household water charges could reduce the overall cost of treatment, no?

I agree with Richard that the regressiveness of the charge should be dealt with through the social welfare system rather than the bilinear solution. The bilinear approach, if it is applies as it has been in my scheme, implies that the charges are merely an extra tax whereas a charge per cubic meter for all the water used yields revenue and incentivises individuals to reduce their water consumption. From an economic point of view the latter is Pareto optimal.

Some people argue that they do not want another tax, yet they are quite happy to subsidise water wasters through the general taxes they pay. If you pay directly for something you can expect to get a certain standard and that has to be part of the changes. In other words you should not be having to pay for water that has to be boiled.

The issue of charges should also kick off a debate about rationalisation and privatisation of water. As the many private schemes prove, drinking water can easily be provided privately, indeed many individuals have their own private source.

It does not matter how much it rains, unless you are prepared to drink untreated water it will cost money to purify it, and supply it. The infrastructure costs are substantial the last €4.75bn was spent under the last NDP and the same amount was allocated for the current NDP. You have to add to this the operating costs.

@ zhou
The evidence that I have seen from the UK (you can find references in the 2006 Investment Priorities report) suggest a 15% reduction of water use once meters are introduced. It is actually quite difficutl to find studies that analyse this as most Western Europeans have been paying for their water (and waste water) for a very long time and one does not hear to many complaints!!

In the context where there have been some capacity constraints in some parts of Ireland and given the cost of the infrastructure, a 15% reduction of demand would make a huge difference. There are many parts of Ireland that could not accomodate an additional business with high water usage and indeed I am aware of a number of location decisions where water supply determined the final location!

@ john muldoon & gekko - you can always organise your own supply by drilling a well - if you get lucky you get clean water but it sure does not come for free.

@ John Muldoon - business is already paying water charges. Ireland only has a derogation from the EU for domestic supply.