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The Daily Utah Chronicle

The University of Utah's Independent Student Voice

The Daily Utah Chronicle

The University of Utah's Independent Student Voice

The Daily Utah Chronicle

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Want your voice to be heard? Submit a letter to the editor, send us an op-ed pitch or check out our open positions for the chance to be published by the Daily Utah Chronicle.
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Salt Lake City Should Raise Water Prices to Encourage Conservation

Sooner or later, Salt Lake City residents are going to have to admit that they live in an area that has a small supply of water available for consumption. With some Salt Lakers already facing water shortages and with the water supply set to decrease and the population of Salt Lake City projected to increase, this realization is going to have to happen sooner rather than later. In order to encourage residents to conserve water, the rate per gallon should be adjusted to more accurately reflect the current situation.

The present rate that Salt Lake City’s public utilities company charges places little emphasis on the valuable resource that the person or entity is using. It’s so low that individuals only suffer a price hike of two cents as a result of wasting 20 gallons of water. The mechanism behind this insanity is the approximate $0.00118 rate that the public utility charges for a gallon of water. Although everybody likes cheap resources, this is making a resource that is not abundant seem extremely abundant and therefore misleading the consumer about the state of Salt Lake City’s water supply. In a world where some people have to walk miles to get access to potable water, residents of Salt Lake can agree that a gallon of water is worth more that .00118 cents. This will also spell trouble when the rates need to be raised in response to a decreased water supply and a concurrent population increase, since many residents will not see the hike coming. They could assume that the low rate meant there was more than enough water to go around and as a result they could object to the increased rate. It would be better to gradually raise the rate instead of raising it all at once.

The current rate also makes it less likely for Salt Lake City to build up a surplus of water to use in case of water shortages. After all, why would residents want to conserve water if they can procure it so cheaply? This means water shortages will be more severe since Salt Lake won’t have a surplus to draw upon. If the rate was increased, it would give Salt Lake City a higher likelihood of establishing a surplus. This will allow utility companies to charge less in times of strife since there will be more to go around.

Increasing the rate that public utilities charge residents could also give the companies more money to spend on increasing Salt Lake City’s water storage capabilities. Companies could have more money to spend on constructing more man-made reservoirs or concrete tanks to store rain water. This would also help residents in the event of a water shortage, since there would be more of a surplus to distribute among residents. Since there would be more of a surplus, the price for water would be lower due to the fact that there would be more water available for distribution.

In an era when water supplies are set to decrease in response to global warming and increased population growth, having such a low rate for a gallon of water is unacceptable. Salt Lake City needs to change the rate that it charges for water to more accurately reflect current water supply realities, unless it wants to become a water desert that is relying on other city and state water supplies.

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