GUEST VIEWS
Shutterstock
Reward Water’s Worth By J.A. Savage
views@northcoastjournal.com
W
hen you think of shipping Humboldt’s Finest in Ziplocs to Southern California, you’re not thinking of bags of river water. But, putting Humboldt’s water in giant baggies on a boat to Southern California was a plan actually taken seriously in 2003 to encourage more water use. Humboldt historically has an outsized allocation of water from the state because the former pulp mills consumed an astronomical amount of water. Squandering water in order to preserve our state water allocation was the idea of some political leaders and business people. They were thinking of it like vacation days at the end of the year, if you don’t take off from work, those days don’t roll over, they disappear. Only, thanks to the slow-moving state water bureaucracy, that never really happened. Yet, the vestiges of “spend it or lose it” water remain in at least one Humboldt public utility. The concept of pulp-mill-sized oversupply (about 50 million gallons per day) is built into Humboldt Community Services District rates. There’s no incentive for consumers to treat water in the district as the precious commodity that it is because
there’s no value attached to conservation. Water-wasting industries like nuclear power plants and pulp mills of the 1960s were the old, clear-cutting, resource-wasting Humboldt County. We will never go back to that kind of industry, nor do we want to. Putting a value on conservation will give the district’s ratepayers a basic financial incentive to conserve. And when we do that, we also save on our environmental impacts of fossil fuel consumption by pumping less water through the system. We save on pollution by treating less sewage (shared with the city of Eureka). And, it allows us to have more control over monthly bills. HCSD doesn’t have any giant customers, like those old pulp mills. Its 7,800 meters are largely residential. There’s likely two to three humans or more behind each meter, so the lack of conservation incentive affects tens of thousands. The last time the district restructured its rates, in 2017, the consulting firm did not recommend valuing conservation, much less allowing for incentives to conserve. Four years ago, the phrase “climate change” was absent in the analysis. The rapidly escalating cost of energy for Continued on next page »
Build to edge ofSthe OW Hdocument Margins are just a safe area
U S YO U R B E S T
Home Cooking!
lockdown? fecting while we’re all in What have you been per by lf rse ter, nominate you We want to know! To en the a photo of your dish using and ipe rec r you . submitting om al.c urn tests@northcoastjo online ballot, or email con nday, epted from through Su Submissions will be acc want your We . ase ple , old seh hou March 14. One entry per at e lin and voting on very best. Details, rules
nort hcoa st jour na l.c
contest SPONSORED BY:
&
om /homecooki ng
northcoastjournal.com • Thursday, March 11, 2021 • NORTH COAST JOURNAL
9
