GrokSurf's San Diego

David Zetland from Aguanomics observes that San Diego “water cops waste $75,000 each” and he’s quite right about San Diego’s wrong-headed policy. The San Diego Water Department will spend $752,370 for 10 FTE positions and associated non-personnel expenditures to support and implement the Drought Response Level 2 mandatory water use restrictions (San Diego FY 2010 annual budget).

Last October I criticized San Diego’s approach to cutbacks as a “superficial and ill-conceived rule that negatively promotes conservation (but not efficient water use), turns neighbors against each other, and wastes water agency funds on ‘enforcement cops’” (An equitable water rate structure: will San Diego ever have one?).

I know I’m not alone in thinking the city instead needs to develop a water-rate structure designed to reward conservation and penalize excessive use. The question is, why aren’t our policymakers doing anything about it?