Householders to be charged for each flush of toilet

news.com.au ^ | November 16, 2008 03:00pm??? | n/a

[Jet Jaguar]

HOUSEHOLDERS would be charged for each flush under a radical new toilet tax designed to help beat the drought.

The scheme would replace the current system, which sees sewage charges based on a home's value - not its waste water output.

CSIRO Policy and Economic Research Unit member Jim McColl and Adelaide University Water Management Professor Mike Young plan to promote the move to state and federal politicians and experts across the country.

"It would encourage people to reduce their sewage output by taking shorter showers,recycling washing machine water or connecting rainwater tanks to internal plumbingto reduce their charges,''Professor Young said.

"Some people may go as far as not flushing their toilet as often because the less sewage you produce, the less sewage rate you pay.''

Professor Young said sewer pricing needed to be addressed as part of the response to the water crisis.

"People have been frightened to talk about sewage because it is yucky stuff, but it is critically important to address it, as part of the whole water cycle,'' he said.

"We are looking at reforming the way sewage is priced and this plan will drive interest in the different ways water is used throughout Australia.''

The reform would see the abolition of the property-based charge with one based on a pay-as-you-go rate and a small fixed annual fee to cover the cost of meter readings and pipeline maintenance, Professor Young said.

The pay-as-you-go rate would provide financial savings for those who reduce their waste water output.

Professor Young and Mr McColl will promote the plan nationally through their Droplet, a newsletter whose 6000 subscribers include state and federal politicians, water policy specialists and economists around the country.

Professor Young said a sewage pricing plan, like the one proposed, was already used in the US.

[sharkhawk]

I've always had metered water, except when on a well, and even then, the more water that's used, the more it costs.

I agree with Moonman. Do people here think that there is some magic fairy that sets up sewage and water treatment plants? It's got to be paid somehow. Why shouldn't someone who overtaxes the facilities pay more. That said it would be easier to meter the water rather than the sewage, and that would probably save more water anyway.

[naturalman1975]

It sounds like a big time compromise in hygiene and a potential disease risk mandated by bureaucratic interference to me.

Not really - the suggestion that people shouldn't flush their toilets really isn't what this charge is aimed at trying to limit - twenty five minute showers, filling your entire washing machine to wash a pair of underwear, etc - that's what they are trying to address. Yes, some misers might go to extremes, but that's not what it's about.

Didn’t a bunch of you get killed recently by wildfires that spread largely because of intrusive Leftist restrictions on clearing woodland fire hazards?

Failure to adequately clear firebreaks and fuel from bush areas probably helped make the fires worse in some cases, but the 115 degree temperatures and 80mph winds had a pretty big impact as well.

I'm a volunteer firefighter - I know bushfire well. Proper land management is important, and some people probably died because it hadn't been done properly - but much of it was beyond any human ability to ameliorate.

[dickmc]

As noted, standard practice is to assume that what comes in goes down the sewer.

The only way to mitigate the sewer cost ascribed to water use is to add a separate approved water meter for outside use like lawn sprinklers or outside faucets for pool filling, etc. Here in the Pittsburgh region, our idiot sewer authority (ALCOSAN) recently signed a $3 billion Consent Agreement with the EPA to clean up their river discharge.

This is the equivalent in today's dollars to asking 300,000 homes and apartments to pay for building 1.3 new Hoover Dams! The end result is that our residential sewer charges will increase ultimately to well over $1,000 per year.

Many other Eastern cities are now under similar consent decrees and will ultimately face similar costs.

I got active at one point and put up a Web site to alert the public to the cost issues at Alcosan's $3 billion Settlement:Issues and Cost to You. However, there were only a couple of homeowners at the public meeting and ALCOSAN would not even discuss the impact cost of their EPA Consent Agreement on their own residential homeowners!!

[tom h]

I probably didn’t make my objection clear. Of course we pay for a commodity based on usage. But giving the Gov’t the right to assess punitive levels of taxation based on usage, all in the interests of the common good, is like giving Government the right to tax caloric intake, carbon release, sugar consumption, etc. It’s a leftist’s dream. Control behavior through punitive taxes and fill Government coffers at the same time, all while politicians are taking credit for being so “good.”

[Vigilanteman]

Thanks for the heads up. I live in Westmoreland County and have little doubt that they will attempt, at some point in the future, the same brand of idiocy here.

[3catsanadog]

And they will use their little kid whine to get it passed: “Waaa, waaa, Australia gets to tax their toilet flushes. Why can’t we???”

[Post Toasties]

Proper land management is important, and some people probably died because it hadn't been done properly - but much of it was beyond any human ability to ameliorate.

There are several well proven land management practices such as controlled burns, creating firestops, thinning of underbrush and over mature forests that can easily obviate most injury and loss of human life due to wildfires, regardless of the environment.

Also, an important issue is whether these dangerous conditions were in place when the homes were built, or were they allowed or forced to develop because of lack of oversight or the passage of wrongheaded environmental statutes.

[Age of Reason]

I keep telling you all.

More people mean less freedom.

Had we ended LEGAL immigration in the 1960s, we’d have half as many people today, and twice as much water to go around.