The price of water, part II
by Lori Barrett | April 18, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Posted in baltimore news, money
I just got an email from the Baltimore City DPW in response to my post yesterday. Rather than misstate it, I will just copy the message here for you:
I read your blog in b and water is not going up “exponentially”. Gas has gone up at least 4% this week alone. Electricity has gone up something like 75% in the last few months. We need both of these to produce drinking water and to take away waste water and process it. You also did not mention our low-income assistance programs (see attached), and the reason for the $250 shut off is to keep people from losing their homes. Keeping our increase to 4% for the next year in light of the fact that we are major consumers of gasoline and electricity is really something you should think about. I hope you correct that exponential comment and note the good work we are doing for our citizens. What you wrote is not true and certainly not fair.
Point taken. “Exponentially” referred not to water itself but the combination of all our utility costs. I didn’t mention the assistance programs because they weren’t the focus of my post, but I did link to an article about it and think they’re great. However, I believe there are a lot of residents out there who miss the cutoffs for assistance but still struggle with the rising costs of utilities and gasoline versus the standstill of their salaries (which, of course, is a larger problem than just the cost of water).
If anyone is interested in the attachment that details the assistance programs, including how to apply, drop me an email and I’ll send it along.
Sorry for the confusion, Baltimore City, and thanks for reading.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
April 18th, 2008 at 4:56 pm | Please log in to reply. | Log in to rate this comment | report this comment
The rising costs of gasoline and electricity apply everywhere, so the solution is to just pass the cost to the consumer because a business should NEVER see its profit decrease.
Everyone, including the state, has to keep their margins high enough that they are taking home enough cash at the end of the day to pay the high salaries of every person on their board and every other elected official.
In the end all this does, is screw the average citizen who works, pays taxes, pays their own gas and electric bill and now the water company's gas bill.
If there is ever a day where the consumer is not charged for everything I will be a happy person. With the economy the way it is, the unwillingness to absorb some of the cost at some point is going to cause it to fall even further into decline.
April 20th, 2008 at 1:35 am | Please log in to reply. | Log in to rate this comment | report this comment
The term 'exponentially' may be a bit harsh. Costs of utilities are increasing, but are they increasing exponentially or just faster than we would like? 'Faster than we would prefer' does not mean 'exponentially'.
'Exponentially' has a very specific meaning, from mathematics. An exponential curve increases and each interval has a larger increase than the previous.
Your point about increasing utility expenses and flat wages is a good one. This effect is 'putting the squeeze' on workers and adding stress. That's the real story here.