Water, water everywhere (do you sea it?)

What with the salty stuff that oozes out of the kitchen tap, the unavailability of 24 hour water service in many places, and the generally sorry state of our fresh water supply in general, all of us have things aqueous on our minds. The folks at the Commonwealth Utilities Corporation (CUC) have water on their brains, too, and are seeing the sea as a potential resource.

The CUC recently bought some newspaper ads soliciting opinions on the prospect of building a desalination plant. Pulling the salt out of water is a wildly expensive proposition, though, and I suspect we’re going to be hearing a lot about this topic for the next year.

According to CUC’s ad, water prices currently “start” at 50 cents per 1,000 gallons. They don’t say where they “finish,” though, but at least we’ve got a number here to mess with.

Desalinated water, by contrast, would cost an estimated five to eight dollars per 1,000 gallons, according to CUC. This arrangement would provide for 24 hour water service.

Most of us aren’t used to thinking of water costs in terms of cents or dollars per thousand gallons, though. What would these costs boil down to for the average family, in terms we can understand?

CUC’s ad says that the average person in Saipan uses about 150-200 gallons per day, while the national average is about 90 gallons per day. That’s quite a range there, but it’s useful information for making wild guesses (which are, of course, my stock in trade).

An average family of four, then, would be paying $146 per year for water, based on consumption of 200 gallons per day at a price of 50 cents per 1,000 gallons.

Assuming they cut this figure in half and consumed 100 gallons per day each, the yearly price for the desalinated stuff would range from $730 (at the five bucks per 1,000 gallon figure) to $1,168 (at eight bucks a gallon).

That’s quite a chunk of change, amounting to almost $100 per month for this average household at the expensive range of estimates.

I see a few issues here. First of all, is the infrastructure that pipes the water in good enough shape to deliver the water effectively? Some folks have opined that leaky pipes are a possible source of contamination.

Another issue, and one that could get a bit nasty: could CUC compel people to participate in the desalination project? At a hundred bucks per month, maybe some folks will prefer to use rainwater and bottled water for their needs. Other folks will point out that the desalination plant is cheaper for people (on average) if the costs are shared by the maximum number of people. This is, by the way, one of the central (and often misguided) themes of government enforced utility monopolies.

Until it’s all sorted out, we’ll have to just conserve water by drinking beer. All in the spirit of conservation, of course. Cheers.