Bill Earngey

Water and sewer rates: Everybody still here? Okay. All of this dithering and figuring about how to pay for the improved, enlarged sewer plant is without any regard to high-end usage and its cost-affect on the low-end usage.

  Residents use about the same amount of water as always, and the vast majority don't have swimming pools, hot tubs, spas, laundries, restaurants, car washes, elaborate gardens, fountains, bars or public bathrooms.

  Everyone -- residents, business, and the City -- pay the same water/sewer costs based on one dollar in and one dollar out (garden meters cost only one dollar "in," because the "out" goes on the ground, not to the sewer plant, but with broken pipes to infiltrate, where does that water really go?).

  All of that still seems sort of, kind of, fair until you remember that the residential usage is static, and the business usage is dynamic -- residential usage stays mostly the same, while business and City usage increases with tourist traffic.

  Although a dollar-in and a dollar-out for all usage appears to be equitable, the dynamic business rate pulls the static residential rate up with it: 2,778 residents flushing a toilet annually is wholly different than about 800,000 tourists flushing a toilet annually.

  However, the actual cost is about volume. Construction, maintenance, delivery, treatment and disposal of water directly affects the size and the condition (wear and tear) of our sewer/water plant.

  The higher the volume equals the bigger the plant, and the bigger the plant equals the bigger the maintenance expenses, all of which equals what we pay monthly.

  Yes, we all pay the same rate per gallon, but the periodic need for expansion and maintenance of the plant is what causes our rates to rise.

  Businesses deduct their usage as a cost of doing business, thereby lowering their taxable income. Residential use is not tax deductible.

  In effect, low-end users are subsidizing high-end users.

  Maybe we should schedule the rates by volume rather than a flat rate of a dollar-in and a dollar-out for all users.