Data just released by Waikato District Council shows that water usage in Raglan is declining. Although water usage was running at over 2000 cubic metres a day during January, it had dropped down to as low as 1523 cubic metres a day in early February. Even so Council is still keeping the water restrictions in place at Level One with domestic sprinkler systems permitted between 6am-8am and 6pm-8pm only.
Raglan water usage:
| Date | Raglan |
| Mon 30 Jan | 1999 |
| Tues 31 Jan | 1817 |
| Wed 1 Feb | 1711 |
| Thurs 2 Feb | 1523 |
| Fri 3 Feb | 1649 |
| Sat 4 Feb | 1705 |
| Sun 5 Feb | 1990 |
Please note that volumes are given in m3 (1m3 = 1000 litres)
Just wondering does the bowling club have their own water supply?
They still seem to be flooding the greens
I’m getting the bowling club water supply checked.
Rodger, it could be that our education programme, upcoming metering (and a wet summer) is impacting positively on water use!
Re water meters: will there be an allocation of water supplied per connection before overuse of water is charged via meters?
The Pokeno and Tuakau schemes have a step up charge starting at 200m3/year.
The rest of the meters in the district have a small fixed rate and remainder by meter consumption but without a step.
We don’t propose a minimum charge at this time, but council will review water charges in 2014.
There is always a tension between encouraging water conservation by charges, versus recovering the fixed costs of having a water supply scheme.
Thanks Richard. In Raglan’s case we need some way to have casual users who are here just a few weeks a year, to pay for the cost of the water infrastructure, which is driven by peak usage. What would probably be fairer here is base fee that entitles people to so many litres and then a usage fee that kicks in when that usage threshold is passed.
Most of the work on water provision done in the last decade has aimed to secure supply during the summer peak. This has raised the water rate a lot. If the population remain at around 2,600 all year the cost of providing water would be a lot lower. Introducing meters means that those here for a short time in summer pay only for water used in that time, which is going to be a lot less than that used for a whole year, yet by adding to peak demand greatly increases the costs for al. Up to now we’ve all paid an even share, but meters will favour those here for a short time. The only way I can see around that with metering is to charge much more to cover the peak costs than the basic charge covering the minimum 1500 cubic metres a day, so that the great bulk of water charges would be in late December/January.
Council supports a Best Kept Garden competition, presumably to improve local amenity. With metering those who are here to water their gardens all year will pay more than those who have low maintenance gardens, which are less of an amenity. Is there a case to offer discounts or exemptions to Horticultural Society members?