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Appendix 1: Attitudes to household water metering

The following is the full report from the new qualitative research on household water metering. This research was conducted by Judy Oakden Consultancy for the Ministry for the Environment in May 2009.

The focus of this qualitative research on household water metering was to understand attitudes, particularly fears and objections, to metering in an area that is not currently metered.

The approach used also provided some insight into the different attitudes to water metering between areas that are currently metered (Auckland) and those that are not (Wellington). One focus group in Wellington (where water is not currently metered) exclusively covered the topic of water metering, and the other four focus groups held in Auckland and Wellington (on selecting a new washing machine, and watering the garden) spent the final half-hour discussing water metering.8

There were some common themes which emerged from these focus groups.

  • Household water metering brought out both rational and emotive responses from group participants.

  • Amongst those without household water meters, the idea of water being measured and charged for created a sense of ‘loss’ of a New Zealand ‘way of life’ – where water is free and unrestricted use is mostly possible (except for when there are seasonal water shortages).

  • Group participants frequently articulated an ability to adapt and use less water (for example when in rural areas, at holiday homes, or on overseas travel). But participants enjoyed returning to urban life, where water is more plentiful and where they could have long showers, for instance. Water use seemed to be viewed as a form of ‘personal freedom’.

  • There was a tension between the introduction of water metering being seen as a way to generate revenue, versus responsible forward planning. Residents relied on councils to make sound decisions on their behalf, but many were not interested in the detail of those decisions.

  • There was a sense of inevitability that household water metering would lead to the privatisation of water, and the electricity reform model was cited as a likely model for water privatisation. Some participants were in favour of privatisation as it was seen as offering more choice, whilst others were strongly opposed to privatisation.

  • There was a sense that if water metering was introduced most households would pay more, and only a few would pay less for their water.

  • Discussion about household water metering raised issues of equity – there was a sense that water was a ‘human right’ and needs to be available to all. Some felt access should be unrestricted, whilst others felt it was only fair that people pay for the water they used.

  • There was very little sense that group participants either in Auckland or Wellington were able to gauge how much water they used or what activities had the greatest contribution to their overall water usage.

  • While there was commitment to not being wasteful, there was little spontaneous focus on conserving water to reduce water bills (other than reducing the use of hot water to reduce power bills), or to conserving water for environmental reasons.

Attitudes to water metering in Auckland (metered)

Amongst the ‘Waste Watchers’ in the Auckland focus groups, there was general acceptance of household water metering. Those who had not lived in other New Zealand cities were surprised that household water metering was not universally implemented throughout the country. On a practical level those who already had household water metering viewed it as ‘normal’. Those who moved to Auckland from other regions recalled being initially surprised to find water was metered, but accepted it as there was no choice.

There is generally plenty of water

Auckland Waste Watchers had the confidence that other than when there were water restrictions, they could use water as they liked. They perceive that there is usually plenty of water available for use, the choice is theirs, they just have to pay for it. There was an understanding that some of the water comes from reservoirs around Auckland and also from the Waikato River, but there was a sense that other than in a drought, the water supply was plentiful and secure.

No real sense of how much water used

Auckland Waste Watchers were typically unable to ‘gauge’ how much water they got for their money, nor did they seem to understand which water use activities contributed most to their bill.

You get a water bill from [the water utility]. On it will detail how many cubic metres you have had in, which takes a mind-boggling consultation to figure out. And I used to understand water, but they now use cubic metres, and its 3 feet by 3 feet by 3 feet of water. If you can visualise that? And how many of those did you load into your house this week. And then at the bottom they say you have had 10 cubic metres of water or 100 cubic metres of water and 80 cubic metres of it went down the toilet pipe.

User pays – generally fair

Auckland Waste Watchers perceived the advantage of household water metering was that everyone paid for the water they used. This meant those who were overly wasteful were penalised and those who were frugal were not. There was acknowledgement that household water metering might result in high bills for large lower income families, who may be least able to afford them, but Auckland Waste Watchers thought the system was fair overall.

I think a water meter is quite fair, I can’t see any other way of doing it because it is very unfair just having all joined on to a pipe and having all pay $10 a week for your water, if your neighbour next door washes three cars and all this sort of drama and you are sitting there scrimping away saving water out of your washing machine and pouring it on your garden and generally saving water and he’s devil-may-care.

No choice over household water metering

Within the groups, it appeared that water metering had become normalised and accepted, partly because there was no other choice.

No choice and whether ...part of that no choice has got to do with the fact that they have reined in something that is falling from the sky. And if we all had tanks like we used to, then would we need Metrowater at all?

Cost of water is increasing

Auckland Waste Watchers were conscious that water costs money. There was a perception that over the years the cost of water, which had been ‘free’, had gone up considerably and there was nothing residents could do about it, as the following quote illustrates.

The [water] rates go up and it goes up all of a sudden but you haven’t got any [say], you are not told that it’s now going up again and why it is going up or anything like that.

Rentals – fair apportionment sometimes difficult

Quarterly bills were more of an issue for tenants than home owners, as sometimes flatmates moved out without paying their portion. The current payment arrangements did not coincide with people’s movements in the way a monthly bill would, as the bill came so infrequently. Also, some flatmates used a lot more water than others. Another issue was the apportioning of water costs in apartment blocks.

It is my understanding though that [billing] is a problem in some multi-dwelling complexes; I have a daughter who had a difficulty with water billing and [had an] ongoing row with the landlord over who was responsible for [it].

Main issue is leaks and repairs

For Auckland Waste Watchers, the main issue with household water metering was dealing with the council over leaks or repairs. While obvious leaks and dripping taps were attended to promptly, residents often only identified less obvious leaks by a higher than usual water bill and by watching the water meter when water was not being used in the house.

And as I found out the hard way, I had a horrendous water bill come along. And I thought ‘what the hell is going on there?’ So I turned everything off and went to bed. At night when there was nobody up and nobody was moving or using any water, and nobody went to the toilet in the middle of the night. And I got up and there’s so many gallons of water gone in the morning on the meter. Oh, and it was right underneath my concrete driveway, and I had to have the drive ripped up to sort it out.

Waste removal is ‘double billing’

Another issue for Auckland Waste Watchers was the perceived ‘double billing’ of water, firstly billing residents for water as it came onto the property by meter, and then billing (by ratio of ‘water in’ to ‘water out’) for taking wastewater from the property. While it is perceived as providing greater transparency in the water billing by some, others feel powerless to affect the waste portion of the bill.

The annoying part about it is that you might pay $800–1000 for as much water as you want and you think that’s a fair price for the 10,000 litres of water that I have used. But they also charge you for the 8000 litres that went down the dunny pipe, they charge you for that as well. So what comes in they charge you once for and what goes down the dunny pipe they charge you [for] again.

Does household water metering drive water conservation?

While Auckland Waste Watchers were aware that water use incurs a charge, they thought the cost did not seem high enough to drive sustained, considered behaviour change. Waste Watchers did not like to be wasteful and that predisposition to frugality appeared to be the key motivator for water conservation behaviour, rather than a high level of concern regarding the cost of household water metering. However, it was observed in the Wellington focus group that Aucklanders appeared to be more conscious of their water use.

I have a lot of friends in Auckland ... I will go up there leave the tap running, you know turn around to do something, and they are turning it off, and I am like “shit, sorry”.

While household water meters do not seem to overtly drive water conservation behaviours, participants in the Auckland focus group on watering the garden were more typically mentioning using grey water or having rainwater tanks for garden watering than the Wellington focus group.

I realised ...that I had been watering in the garden in previous years [and] if I was going to start using that hose it was going to affect our watering bill ...so I started to [use grey water] not very easily, but try and just sometimes if I happened to be at the washing machine at the right time, because I couldn’t time my washing machine either to say give me the grey water now, but I would take grey water from there ....I know from years ago that [you can take] a little bit of soapy water ...and chuck it over your veges, it helps keep the bugs off.

However, the use of grey water was also considered a hassle by some.

Hassle....We collect it in buckets as the machine empties and carry it out into a larger container and tip it in and store it and use it. And that means for me taking a bucket over a carpeted area in the house to get out the door to get to where I have got to go to.

We are not wasteful, it’s others

Auckland Waste Watchers’ judgment of overt water waste was not focused on their own water use, but that of their neighbours. They described wastefulness as daily, prolonged use, often during the day (rather than in the evening) of sprinklers; leaking taps; or water overflowing from the hot water cylinder on to the roof. They reported they attended to obvious leaks promptly to avoid incurring larger than necessary water bills.

You look around the neighbourhood and there is often a person with that pipe that goes up to the roof that are the equalising pipe, and it is the hot water and you can see it when the sun is out and you can see where it has drained down the roof and it’s all shiny and then you look at the roof and oh that’s been happening for a while.

Attitudes to water metering in Wellington (non-metered)

Three focus groups in Wellington were conducted to better understand concerns over household water metering amongst those who currently do not have water meters; one of the groups covered this topic exclusively. Generally participants knew some of their water came from the Te Marua storage lakes, but there was no clear understanding of their role, or of the integrated water system serving the Wellington metropolitan area. They saw the Wellington water supply being plentiful and abundant, quite different from Kapiti, where there were acknowledged water shortages.

Wellingtonians had very little knowledge of the amount of water they used and the types of activities that used the most water. There was vague awareness that water rates were between $500 and $1000 per annum, but this sum tended to get lost within the general rates.

Discussions about household water metering were both rational and emotive, and often the two were intertwined. There were a lot of different concerns regarding the introduction of household water metering, which are outlined below.

No need, plenty of water

On a rational level, there was a sense that household water metering was not needed in Wellington: “we don’t need it – there is not a water problem”. Most group participants felt that, as there is plenty of rain in Wellington, there is plenty of water.

I mean there has been shortages in the summers where you can’t wash your cars, windows or water your garden, but I still think like everyone said there is a lot of rain here, so I think we all do probably take it for granted that we can wash the car or water the garden or bath the kids or have an hour-long shower if that’s what you wish to do.

I think you are right we probably are a little bit ignorant to someone saying right for three days you can’t shower, we have never been that extreme in New Zealand.

Well [they are] sort of regional problems aren’t they, different regions have different problems.

I don’t think we have got a water problem myself, I think there is plenty of water supply in Wellington. It’s obviously because you have got the mountains and hills and water coming off and the rivers. If we need more water for the growth it’s not that fast that we can’t build another reservoir… I think that putting water meters in … it’s a revenue collection exercise so they can pay for building more infrastructure …. I don’t think we will ever run out of water and definitely not in Wellington, not like in places like Australia where they need to get sea water and desalination plants.

Water is ‘free’

On a more emotional level, water was seen as something that was ‘free’ and there were concerns over who should have the ‘right’ to ‘sell’ water.

I think most people would be really gutted thinking they are going to have to pay for something that we have had free for all these years.

It’s sad that we have to come to the fact that we have got to pay for water when it should be free.

But whose is it to sell, it comes from the sky?

With water meters I was thinking about how fortunate we are that we don’t have to have water meters, and how in some countries it has led to privatisation and some people not being able to afford water.

Low recognition of water infrastructure costs

On the other hand there was acknowledgement from a very few participants that there is an infrastructure cost in supplying water.

It’s very expensive supplying water, I mean the council pay a lot of money doing the water reticulation, dams, filtering, purifying, it doesn’t come for nothing I can assure you of that.

But they [the council] are not getting it for nothing, we are already paying.

Those who had lived in Auckland were aware of how the infrastructure charges worked, and those who visited friends in Auckland also noted they had different behaviours related to water use.

In Auckland… they’ve got two separate charges, you’ve got your wastewater, there is a charge for wastewater as well as the water usage.

I have a lot of friends in Auckland ... I will go up there leave the tap running, you know turn around to do something, and they are turning it off, and I am like “shit, sorry”.

Water is a human right

Further exploring the notion that water is ‘free’, it becomes apparent that water is seen as a human right. The notion that people might have their water cut off if they do not pay their bills is unacceptable.

So there is a whole lot of other issues surrounding who has got the right to access clean water.

It’s an interesting thing that I am thinking of is that water is a basic human need. And it becomes an ethical issue as well. Because you can’t go turning someone’s water off because they either can’t afford the bill or they haven’t paid the bill, because it is necessary for life. And so it becomes an ethical question, about how you are going to enforce [water metering].

In addition, because water use is seen as a human right, there is a feeling that household water metering may not curb usage, as the following quote suggests.

I guess we are all in the unknown, but same with power, I am sure none of us sit in the darkness because we are scared that that’s going to cost too much money...I think either you are really going to care about it or you are not. If it is $500 a month I guess you think “oh shivers”, but again it is going to affect half of us, some people won’t care some people will still leave the hose running, wash the cars do whatever … I don’t care. I will have half-an-hour in the shower, I don’t care if my meter is going to go, if I am cold I will turn a heater on, I don’t think about the power bill. So again you have got the greenies and you have got the people who don’t care… I do think we all take it for granted, that we turn it on and it’s there.

Concerns about privatisation

Underpinning concerns over who should have the ‘right’ to sell water was the belief that, longer term, once metering was introduced, water utilities might be sold off. There was potential for water utilities to operate in a similar manner to electricity utilities. Some group participants were disenchanted with electricity utilities and thought they were taking unnecessarily large profits. Privatisation was seen as the inevitable final outcome of household water metering.

I think it will start off like everything else has started off, with being the one supplier and then in order to raise capital they will sell [it] off.

It will be exactly the same as the power companies. The government is saying we are going to introduce competition so we are going to have all these different power companies. So we have all these power companies and we have all these CEs that are paid so much money and we will have these great big staff organisations. And they are all going to have to make a profit so they can pay dividend back to the government. And so it will be exactly the same with the water, there will be a new company set up, they will introduce these meters, they will cost a fortune. They are going to have a whole big staff to run it, there is going to be another big organisation to go out and maintain them, to install them. And who’s going to pay for it?

Also they build up this company it is going to take a lot of money to build up the infrastructure for the company. And what happens if they sell it off, do they sell that in the future? Just also I think it is education as well, I don’t think people are really [clear] what’s the council’s intention, so ... has [council] got some sort of hidden agenda in this?

Water metering – a revenue generating mechanism

Closely aligned to privatisation was a concern that household water metering would be viewed as a potential revenue source. There was a sense that water was a public good, something that should be produced at cost, not profited on.

It’s like, oh, we should start another electricity company so we can pay someone else a million dollars and to have another big branding exercise and the PR firm is going to make more money … but it doesn’t create competition. And I think that water is a commodity that shouldn’t be subject to competition, how many countries would you have that, have two water suppliers, you can’t.

And so they will get an injection of capital for doing that. And then it will open up the market. And I think competition is great but they generally don’t give us a lot of benefits. Because they all sort of seem to gauge themselves off each other.

Cost increase, not redistribution of costs

In general, the focus was on additional costs as opposed to the identification of any environmental benefits that might be derived from water metering. Group participants observed there are two types of costs that would be incurred if water metering were implemented: the cost of the initial installation, and the cost of ongoing maintenance. Then there are usage costs. So they felt they would pay for all aspects of implementation along the chain and expected that the average cost of water to each household would increase as a result.

There is going to be cost to install them that’s going to be huge, it will go on our rates to pay for that.

Further, participants believed that with additional costs of implementation and maintenance their rates bill was unlikely to reduce even if there was a separate water bill. Thus they believed there would not be a redistribution of costs and that costs for metering would be additional to the existing rates bill.

I think it would be rare that we would get a discount off our rates bill because we will be getting charged for the metering. I think that it will just be an extra cost and an extra revenue stream.

More losers than winners

There was some acknowledgement that some people might be better off with household water metering, for instance, those who used little water. But there was a general feeling that there would be more people paying more and only a few paying less if household water metering was introduced. This added to the perception that household water metering is a profit-making venture.

In the end I doubt whether you are actually going to be better off if you are conservative in your water usage with a meter because it’s another revenue stream I think.

To me it is also certainty of price like you get most things are going to go up each year whatever the rate is, it won’t go down.

I think user pays systems always benefit a small group. The benefits being shared across the community or society is less likely to make it in the hands of the common person.

Lack of understanding about current usage

Group participants noted they did not know how much water they used per year, so it was hard to estimate what the benefits or disadvantages of household water metering might be.

I think we don’t know anything like that, whatever water usage we are currently using per household, we don’t know what the general portion that we are paying of it is, say it is 20 per cent of our rates. What is that, what is that equivalent to? Is that how many litres of water is allocated per house before we go over the threshold, and we would be considered using too much water?

We don’t know how much we are paying for.

Lack of trust in motives

Underlying all these concerns was a lack of trust in the motives for metering household water. This was evident when one of the focus groups on selecting a washing machine was moved on to discuss household water metering. Respondents made the following comments.

So this is what it [the focus group] is all about, the water metering.

The other one [washing machine topic] was just to suck you in, it’s that sales pitch.

Two hours talking about washing machines and it wasn’t really about that at all was it? The bloody council.

Councils need to lead water conservation by example

Focus group participants had expectations that ‘the council’ lead the way demonstrating water conservation practices, though they were unclear about which council this was (regional or territorial). This included the use of water-saving techniques on its own properties, fixing leaks quickly, and fairly apportioning the cost between domestic and business use of water. There was a perception by some that ‘the council’ does not meet its own water conservation obligations, and that ‘the council’ itself wastes a lot of water.

I thought it was 30-40 per cent of Wellington’s water is wasted through broken pipes, and this is the council’s problem, because the council won’t fix those pipes, so here it is the council trying to make us save water when they are not fixing their own.

Pouring it on our parks, that’s one thing that gets me, in the middle of summer when they are telling us to conserve water and you can use your sprinkler on your garden that night but not the next night and you look at the parks around the city and you see them [for several hours] bucketing water on even in bright sunlight when it burns off the most.

Difficulty for councils in communicating with residents

Focus group participants from the Wellington region did not seem aware of any ‘council’ communications relating to forward planning for water. For group participants there appeared to be both a sense of stealth and a sense of inevitability around activities related to water metering, fuelled by wariness of motives for introducing it. It did not seem, to group participants, that they had been part of a process where the council responsibly and proactively planned for the future and clearly communicated with them. There was also a degree of misinformation evident, possibly due to miscommunication.

Yes, everywhere they go, [say] an old street, they have been doing it over the years. So when they go and do work on the water then it is a standard, I think, to just chuck in a meter. And it is ready there for one day [when] they will be able to meter you.

So it’s really introduction by stealth?

Yeah, so you will probably be quite surprised at actually how many meters are around the Wellington suburbs.

So any consultation is probably a farce if they are already putting it in, then all they are trying to do is soften you up to say that oh yes, yes I really want it.

I don’t think that at the last election anybody spoke about water metering.

I know what they want to do is start putting meters just for the council’s own data collection, in certain suburbs, just because apparently Wellington uses up four times the amount of water as everyone else or something like that and they want to know if there is a leak in the system first, because at say 2 o’clock at night the water is still flowing in Johnsonville or something.

But on the other hand, it seemed that group participants did not really want to engage in water-planning discussions, rather they wanted water to be ‘on tap’ as cost effectively as possible. Part of this reserve to be involved related to a lack of knowledge and expertise to make informed decisions about the future, and a lack of knowledge about the need for water conservation.

I just feel like it is, they have been talking about it for a number of years – to be honest it’s just that inevitability. And I am not sure what the resources are like down in the Hutt where they get the water from. There may be time where perhaps that’s maybe getting a bit old or something, might need to update it maybe.

Well, not being a water expert but I think they will just need to build more resources ...Yeah, I think there probably comes a time when that probably needs to be replaced and they need to get the money from somewhere and they will do user pays I think, that is what the council is doing anyway, you pay your rates and everything is user pays, your rubbish bags or whatever, so that will come as well.

I haven’t heard anything about it and I don’t think I would go to the trouble of trying to find out about the infrastructure because I think that it will probably ... annoy me even more.

If it [information about water infrastructure] is not obviously available to us, who is going to spend their time Googling that?

Perceived advantages of household water metering, Wellington (non-metered)

Group participants were asked for the potential advantages of water metering. In general, groups continually returned to the disadvantages of water metering. The main advantages of water metering were perceived to be that users pay for the water used, leaks will become more apparent, households will become more aware of the water used, and that some may save in water bills from their more frugal use.

User pays

There was a sense that a user pays system of household water metering could apportion cost more fairly to heavier consumers of water.

I think that user pays is good, I firmly believe in it, why should you pay for someone else’s wastage of water?

People will be more conscious of what they are using.

The advantages again is the user pays …your neighbour always has a sprinkler running 24/7 and out there clipping his lawn and mowing it and every time as well, and [it’s] like a golf green, then he can pay for it. Or his pool, he fills his pool up and empties it, then they can pay for it, those people that use a lot of water.

Despite this, focus group participants were generally not keen on this option.

Identify leaks

Another advantage of household water metering was that it would assist households to identify water leaks and reduce waste.

That could be a good thing if you metered water, that’s going to show up leaks, people are going to go oh my gosh there are leaks, why am I using so much, that’s not me, oh I have uncovered a leak.

However, there was a sense that in the first instance it would be difficult to judge what a normal water bill was, and hence it might take a while to identify leaks.

It takes a while, you have to talk to people and go okay have you got the same kind of household as me, how much are your bills, because that’s how we seem to find out information. It is not from looking online or anything because that is not indicative of the usage, it is from talking to other people who have the same kind of [household] dynamics.

Save money

Some group participants thought that they would save money if household water meters were introduced, as they have low water use. These people tended to be from small households. It was expected that households with lots of children, particularly teenage children, would be the worst off.

I actually think we are going to save money... Because we don’t use a lot of water and we are paying for people who are using a lot of water, so it is dependent on whether you are a big water user.

I have four adults/teenagers whatever you want to call them, and I am chewing through a lot of power, and a lot of water, so I can’t control them in the shower because they just don’t listen unless I turn the hot water off.

Participants thought another advantage of household water metering was that the system would impose a personal responsibility for water use. But because few people could see how they personally might reduce their water use, they tended to think that it would be others who would make savings.

A lot of people waste water, water the garden willy nilly, wash the car every [few] days, shower like mad.

Wellington focus group participants were more critical of the need for water metering and were therefore generally opposed to its introduction. The barriers to water metering include a lack of knowledge of the water conservation issues in the region, and a perception that there is a plentiful, unlimited supply available now and in the future.

 

8  Note that the participants in the focus groups on ‘selecting a new washing machine’ and ‘watering the garden’ were identified as being in the ‘Waste Watchers’ population segment.

 

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