THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 17, 1995 TAG: 9509160130
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 54 lines
Chesapeake residents don't mind paying a fair price for a safe, reliable water supply, but putting out good money for a product that they can't use really gets their goat.
For Councilman Dalton S. Edge, who would like to give voters a reason to re-elect him in November, frustration over the city's water crisis is the kind of campaign issue of which dreams are made. If he can be the one to articulate the righteous indignation of the victims of the city's bungled water policy, his return to the council is virtually assured.
Mr. Edge proposed Tuesday that cash rebates be returned to the city's water customers for as long as the product being delivered to them is sub-standard.
His argument makes so much sense: ``As a farmer, when I bring my products to market and they are not satisfactory, that has consequences. We should expect of government what we expect of ourselves.''
The City Council, without Mr. Edge's concurrence, actually jacked up the price of its water last month, despite the fact that the stuff coming out of the pipes in some of the city's most populated areas is barely fit to drink. That action flew in the face of one of the bedrock principles of the marketplace: Higher prices are reserved for superior products.
However opportunistic Mr. Edge's defense of this principle appears to be, he has a point that will be difficult to refute.
Some will argue that public utilities are not businesses and that the principles of the open market do not apply to them. Like it or not, in this they are right. There is no profit margin to be cut if costs exceed income in the operation of the water system. There are no stockholders to hold financially accountable for the decisions which led to the deterioration of the product.
The city's water system is owned and operated by the people of Chesapeake and, in the end, it is they who are financially responsible for its improvement and upkeep. If it's going to cost money to fix the problems - and it is - one way or the other, the citizens are going to have to pay for it, if not through higher utility bills now, then through taxes or borrowing later.
But nobody will be thinking of that as they go to the bank with their rebate checks. However piddling the amount of the refunds on water bills may be, they will represent a moral victory for frustrated citizens, a triumph of consumers' rights, a message to the water bureaucrats that we won't be pushed around.
The election will be over by the time the realization sinks in that the problems with the water system still have to be fixed and that the improvements will cost money. Just whose money do you suppose that'll be? by CNB