Rain in the Catchment

With all this lovely rain falling in the Sydney area in the recent past, in many conversations I hear the common sentence, “I hope it’s falling in the catchment area.” This hope in some way reflects the helplessness we feel. City and suburb dwellers see blanket rain coverage for days and yet there seems to be no end to ‘our water crisis’. Doesn’t something seem wrong here?

There are things causing this ‘water crisis’ apart from lack of rain. This includes the price of water being too low because of state ownership of water assets. If water assets were privately owned, I would predict a faster end to the water shortage. But more of that later. First an elementary insight gained from my study of economics.

Water does not need to fall in the catchment area for the water crisis to ‘evaporate’. The water crisis can also end by rain falling in areas that consume water from the catchment. How so? If households (bucketed with rain) who live outside the catchment area install water tanks and collect some of that water falling on them, they can reduce their consumption of water from other sources, namely the damns with such low levels.

Some households have installed such water tanks (their own personal catchment area) and I understand from a good source, that certain hardware stores are seeing an increase in sales of water tank fittings and accessories. Why is this adoption not more widespread?

One reason is that the price of water is too low. This does not encourage water users to conserve on usage and develop alternate supplies. If the price of water were higher, a water tank (and other water saving technologies) would become more profitable. For the June 2006 quarter, Sydney Water charged $1.20 for 1,000 litres of drinking quality water. That’s pretty good value really. Such outcomes are a marvel of our modern semi-civilised society.

The cause of the water price being too low is state ownership of the water assets. The various damns (supplying Sydney residents with water) are ‘owned’ by the Sydney Catchment Authority, a NSW Government agency. But in reality, no-one owns the water. No-one can sell the water assets and pocket the proceeds for himself. Since no-one owns the capital value of the water assets, there is no-one with an interest in holding back water for the future.

For an end to the water crisis, I call for the privatisation of the assets of the Sydney Catchment Authority, but not by sale. Water assets should be privatised by allocating shares to the ultimate private customers of the Sydney Catchment Authority perhaps in proportion to the water charges they have paid.

There is always the alternative for households to develop their own privately owned catchment area by purchasing a water tank to satisfy their desire for water, making state-supplied water irrelevant. Consider it an investment in liberty.

© Danny Haynes

- posted 19 June 06 in

Comments

  1. David G, 19 June 2006, 08:30:

    Good luck on privatisation other than by sale. :)

    ...And I predict in the near future there will be a water tank tax by volume. The State will not tolerate your kind of liberty for long.

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