And the Biggest Portland Hydro-Hog Is...The Stutz-Gulick Household @ 3 AF/Year!

Yes, the gorgeous home of  Benjamin Stutz and Cynthia Gulick used over 1M gallons (3 AF!) per year of the City of Portland's municipal water for the 2013 FY (1 July 2012 - 30 June 2013). That amount is 22.4 times that of the average Portland household. The annual bill is $4,078.

 

Mark Ingman sent me this story, which appeared in Willamette Week last August. It was written by Catalina Gaitan, Emily Schiola, and Aaron Mesh. They identified the 10 biggest Hydro-Hogs (single-family residences) in the Portland area.

Here is the beginning of their article:

Opening our water bill didn’t always hurt this much.

Portland once had one of the lowest water rates for American cities its size.
But no longer. In 2001, the typical annual residential water bill was $150. Now an average bill exceeds $330—and we can expect another 14 percent hike in time for next year’s bill.

 The squeeze on our pocketbooks has meant turning off the faucet. The rising costs have led to more conservation, from brown lawns to low-flow devices. The average Portland home has cut its water consumption from 71,808 gallons a year more than a decade ago to 44,880 gallons today.

 But some people don’t feel the pain.

 In 2001, WW debuted a feature called “Hydro Hogs”—the Portlanders who use more water than anybody else to fill their pools, water their roses and keep their fountains spurting. We named names and asked these big gulpers why they use so much of the city’s water. 

After a six-year hiatus, Hydro Hogs is back, in large part because we started to wonder about the city’s aquatic elite. Was the rising price tag of Bull Run water keeping them from fully submerging in luxury?

 Turns out we were wrong to worry. 

 For the city’s biggest water customers, a few thousand extra dollars spent to sprinkle their vineyard, fill their spas and irrigate their terraced Italianate gardens is only a drop in their financial buckets. The Hydro Hogs this year are still using as much water (an average of 779,640 gallons a year) as the honorees of the past.

 But here’s what really stunned us: Most hadn’t blinked at the size of their water bills or noticed anything amiss.

 When we began running Hydro Hogs all those years ago, it was with the memory of a 1992 water shortage reminding us that natural resources should never be taken for granted.

 It’s still true that Bull Run isn’t going to run dry soon (although if we all drained our faucets at the rate of this year’s Hydro Hogs, we would empty the Bull Run reservoir seven times).

 The coming year is a crucial time—you might even call it a watershed moment—for the future of Portland’s water supply.

 Fresh off a fight over fluoridation, the people of Portland will have to decide whether to let City Hall continue to set utility rates. Activists and business owners argue that the city can no longer afford to let politicians control the city’s water, and they want an independent board elected by voters.

But environmental leaders say that’s a dangerous precedent, allowing corporations to lead a coup of the city’s public utility.

 Yet at this moment, many of the biggest residential water users don’t have a clue how much they’re using. That inequality suggests a growing gap between the haves and the have-nots—the people who can’t afford water and the people who can’t get enough.

 If we learned one thing from Hydro Hogs 2013, it’s this: You can’t soak the rich.

 Even #10 on the list used over 2 AF per year (662,000 gallons). 

Like the authors, I was struck by how clueless most of the hogs were:

“I am a very environmentally conscious person—I drive a hybrid car, and think constantly about the careful use of water.” - Betsy Cramer (#6, 770,000 gallons)

She estimated her hot tub holds about 500 gallons, which would only account for about 1,500 gallons. “Doesn’t seem like much in the context of 759,000 gallons.” she wrote. - Betsy Cramer

“You got a mistake,” he says. “I’m trying to figure out how I could possibly use that quantity of water.” - Morris Galen (#5, 790,000 gallons)

Easly contends he makes up for his water use with the carbon offsets from his trees. "I hope more Oregonians grow plants in an urban scene,” he says. “I’ve got spotted owls out here.” - David Easly (#3, 815,000 gallons)

“They tell me if you plant a new tree you have to water it pretty significantly for about three years, and we’ve had a bit of a dry spell.” - Thomas Rosenbaum (#2, 919,000 gallons)

See the entire list here.

Clueless? But I suppose if you're 'only' using 1M gallons instead of 1.5M gallons because you are being judicious about water use, then I guess you are conserving. It's all relative, right?

Generated some discussion in my class this morning. 

“Our water use should actually be negligible because we conserve it.” - Benjamin Stutz

Comments

[Will Anderson]

That lawn could look a lot better with 1/4 the water if they just spread some compost on it. Or hired a consultant. Irrigating nonstop just leaches all the nutrients away. . .

[Michael]

Hi, David and Matthew.

Thanks for the comments.

Some info about the Portland Water Bureau and the rate issue. IMHO I think the PWB is pretty well run. They just finished a $1B 'Big Pipe' project to deal with CSOs. The EPA has ordered them to cover their reservoirs. They have a filtration waiver from EPA for the Bull Run watershed but I am unsure how long that will last. So they are under some 'price pressure'. And then there are the usual other infrastructure issues (old pipes, emerging contaminants, etc.) that will cost $$$.

@David: you raise a good issue about the 'moral hazard' or 'moral sin' involved. Water is currently plentiful in the area. So if the folks can afford it, shouldn't they be able to use as much as they want? My class generally felt this way.

@Matthew: you raise an equally valid issue about environmental flows. There are other uses besides human ones and in the PNW watershed restoration is almost a religion. So we have an obligation to the environment as well. I would come down on the side of cutting back on your water use for environmental conservation.

1M gallons per year?? C'mon man!

[Matthew Heberger]

@David, I'm not an expert on the situation in Portland, but I think there are two things happening here.

First, re: "abundance." Sure, the Pacific Northwest is wet and rainy, so it's easy to call their water supply abundant. But their water comes from the Bull Run River, a tributary of the Columbia which supported salmon and other anadramous fish species that are now endangered. In brief, diversions are killing federally-listed species, so that's one reason to use less water.

Regarding the need to raise prices, Portland's water utility rates are going up a lot faster than inflation. You know well that this is the case for a lot of US utilities these days, since they are dealing with costly infrastructure maintenance and upgrades, more stringent water quality laws, and greater demand for environmental protection.

Where should all the money they need come from? I think we agree that it should be the water users themselves. Simple volumetric rates are simpler and more economically efficient, but I think utilities should also worry about fairness and social equity, and I think that's why our opinions differ on "tiered rates." It seems fair to charge a small amount for water for basic needs, and much higher unit costs for water use that is "discretionary," like irrigating the acres of grapes behind your Italianate villa!

[David Zetland]

@Matthew -- you sound reasonable, but why raise prices if water's abundant? Is there some "moral sin" involved? I'm happy to concede a high level of environmental flows but what if it's STILL abundant?

I'm seeing a little too much "oh, my, they don't recycle" in this article, which is kinda silly compared to real issues.

[Matthew Heberger]

I kind of love these stories, just because they attract a lot of attention. A couple observations: almost every entry mentioned leaks. Plus, there is a lot of large landscape irrigation happening with potable water. So a couple of ideas for the water utility managers in Portland:

1. Install smart meters so people can get timely notification of leaks. Failure to repair a large leak in a few days should be grounds to cut off someone's service.

2. Institute steeply tiered rates. These big water users apparently don't respond to price signals and pay their bills without batting an eye. Then the big users cross-subsidize, and no rate increase is necessary for average water users.