Northwest North Carolina was in the grips of a monster drought until the beginning of this year and the message we residents received was, "Conserve water."  And honestly isn't water conservation a good thing even when there isn't a drought?  That's why you have to scratch your head in wonder when you read that Winston-Salem is raising its water rates because usage is down by 10%.  Somehow I think it would be a better idea to reward conservation rather than punish it, but they have their reasons:

Saunders said the city must pay $100 million in new construction for projects like the $55 million water plant currently under construction off Martin Luther King Drive. Saunders said raising water rates is the only option to recoup those costs.

"We wouldn't need a rate increase if we could increase sales by 20 percent, but we can't do that. We can't market the water (usage)," Saunders said.

But here's my favorite quote from Mr. Saunders, who is the utilities director:

"The less you use, the lower your rate increase will actually be," Saunders said. "Even with these rate changes, Winston-Salem still has the lowest cost of water than any major city in North Carolina."

Uh, unless I missed something his first sentence there is a little wrong.  No matter how much water you use your rate increase is going to be the same, but your gross increase will be less than it would be if you used the same amount of water.  And I guess if you look at this from a purely economic theory standpoint you will probably promote conservation by raising the rate because people will have to use less water in order to keep their bills down.  Still, it doesn't sound good when you have to introduce a rate increase because your moving less water even if our rate is still the lowest in the state (which I DO think we should be thankful for).

Oh, and please don't think I'm not thankful every day for the fact that I can turn on a spigot in my house and have clean water whenever I want it, whether it's to drink or shower or wash dishes.  Also, after dealing with our septic problem I'm keenly aware of how much water we use on any given day and how inconvenient it is when you can't use it.  I really am very thankful that we have Mr. Saunders and his crew doing their thing, and from what I can tell they do a good job.  So let's say I absolutely understand the need to keep up their infrastructure, but boy do I wish they didn't have to raise rates to do it at a time when they could be bragging to the rest of the world that we are actually using less water around here.