THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 25, 1995 TAG: 9508240254
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
LENGTH: Medium: 56 lines
Chesapeake has some bad news and some good news: The bad news is that the price of city water is going up. The good news is that the stuff is so bad you won't be buying as much.
It's a basic principle of the marketplace that the higher prices go to the superior products. The City Council turned that principle on its head this week when it jacked up the combined rate for water and sewer service by an average of $2.10 per residential customer. In addition, businesses will be expected to pay up to $850 more to hook up new developments to the city's water and sewer systems.
In return for their money, customers will be getting water containing several times the recommended maximum levels of chlorides and sodium, water that is actually hazardous to the health of many users, water that makes iced tea taste like bilge from a Liberian freighter.
To add insult to injury, the city will ask residents in November to take on the second-largest bond debt in history in hopes of making the water palatable.
Officials argue that consumers should come across with the cash to ensure that the periodic contamination of the Northwest River water supply is solved once and for all.
It doesn't work that way in a free market. We are accustomed to paying our suppliers on the basis of what they deliver, not on the basis of promises to do better in the future.
Suppose your baker said ``The bread you're buying is stale and moldy, but if you'll pay me a premium price for it, I'll be able to offer better bread someday.'' Suppose the milkman said, ``The milk you're buying is sour, but if I raise my prices, I'll be able to do a better job of keeping my milk fresh.'' Would there be any takers?
Public utilities, of course, are not operated on a free market, so comparing city water to other commodities we buy only goes so far. In the case of the municipal water system, citizens have the role not only of consumers, but also of stockholders.
Even so, it's hard to forget the great show that the Council made not many months ago when it shaved the property tax rate a few pennies, returning to citizens money it said it didn't need and laying claim to the resulting political capital.
And we are reminded that the same Council has consistently turned a deaf ear and a blind eye to reasonable proposals to link the cost of improving public facilities to growth - proposals designed to prevent just this sort of crisis.
Under the circumstances, it's not surprising that some water customers are asking the obvious question: Why should prices be going up at a time when the quality of the product is so low? by CNB