[Vision2020] Water. A potential action plan

[Nils Peterson]

This is what I was hoping would happen. Movement toward some action plan. A
question remaining is, would this plan pass political muster?

Carscallen laid out an idea for funding water conservation:
This is all well and good, but why not take it a step further.  The City
could have a policy of offering said low-flush toilets (as Nils said --
as long as they work) to the public at large, allowing people to "pay
them off" on their monthly water bill.

One problem -- what do do with all those old toilets?

To which Solomon offers a resolution:

> Hi Dan,
> 
> I agree that an appropriate disposal method should be developed.
> Stripped of their flush mechanisms, toilets are the definition of
> inert waste and make fine fill when crushed. Ever run over a toilet
> with a dozer? Seriously, the volume of crushed toilets versus the
> amount of concrete that is dozed into fill each year in the Moscow
> area?
> 
> I like the next step idea. It would make sense for the City to
> negotiate a bulk discount price for several models of low flush
> toilets and make them available to City residents at cost.

There is a green venture capital company getting started Moscow - Mark
Winstein (sp?) is doing it. The idea is to raise and lend capital for green
projects. This could be the source of the funds -- the City might put its
credit behind the project but have no money in the game.

Can somebody do the math on this project? How much of a fund would the City
need so that it could buy the new toilets and pay the installation then be
paid back?

A key question is, what to do with the water savings? On Solomon's water
budget, the savings would give the City head room in its PBAC agreement.
That headroom could be used to accept new growth. Where is my incentive
here? 

Maybe I get the water savings (reduced bill) and a would-be developer pays
off the investment fund to buy the units of water for a new project. This
might be implemented as an additional fee when getting a building permit --
called Water Right for Development. The City's toilet fund would maintain an
estimate of the water savings it had generated and it would know the current
cost of those savings, so it would know the marginal cost of a unit of
water. That would be used to set the building fee.

Further, we would have a measure of the marginal cost of a unit of water.
With that, we could engage the other conversations in this thread, all those
things known to have large price tags.

Thanks Dan & Mark. I think we are getting somewhere