Anti-Drought: Water Officials Hope to Drive Up Water Usage

Today we learned via the Voice of San Diego website...

By Ry Rivard | August 31, 2017

In a jarring contrast to conditions during the drought, the San Diego County Water Authority is actually trying to drive up demand for its water.

As recently as the first months of this year, Californians were asked to conserve water. Well, they did. And they still are. Now, that’s a problem.

Demand for water is low. In San Diego, it’s so low that drinking water is just sitting in the main pipeline that delivers water from hundreds of miles away to the southern half of the county. Typically demand for water is highest during the summer.

When water sits around, particularly in the summer heat, it stagnates and can become undrinkable.

To keep water moving, the Water Authority’s staff is talking about ginning up demand for water by offering incentives to several water agencies, including the city of San Diego’s water department. This wouldn’t necessarily result in profligate water use, because the Water Authority may just want agencies, like the city water department, to switch from the cheaper water they have stored in their own reservoirs to more expensive water that the Water Authority sells them.

To read more, please visit the original article here: http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/government/call-anti-drought-water-officials-hope-drive-water-usage/