LETTER: Water metres needed to create fair system
By Contributor
Letter to the Editor
I have a question for those complaining about water meters. Should a household that conserves water pay the same water rate as those who consume considerable amounts? Is this just and fair?
In July, 2004, while living in Grand Forks, I wrote a letter to the Editor of the Gazette expressing my observations.
I timed the filling up my bathtub. It took five minutes. When observing my neighbour with two watering guns I calculated he was using the equivalent of 72 bathtubs of water for his morning ‘sprinkling’. This would be the equivalent of about 288 bathtubs per week on a patch of grass to keep it green – never mind household and vegetable-garden water.
Meanwhile, each week I was having maybe three showers (about one-and-a-half bathtubs of water) with sink-baths in-between; using about two bathtubs of water for dishes; one for laundry; two for cooking and drinking; and about three for flushing (when it’s yellow let it mellow). I didn’t water the lawn (let it go its natural course); hand-watered the vegetable garden; and a couple of times over the summer ran a drip hose overnight to the base of the fruit trees. This would amount to approximately 15 bath-tubs of water.
There’s a big difference between 15 and 288-plus bathtubs of water per week. Should both pay the same rate?
How selfish and spoiled many have become. Has anything changed in ten years?
Sincerely yours,
Rosemary Phillips
Christina Lake
