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March 2013 Archives

Jamaica is pushing forward with required rainwater harvesting for new developments.  Per the article linked below:

Government Senator Norman Grant, while supporting the motion, argued that the country's water problem lies in the management and distribution of the commodity.

However, Grant said rainwater harvesting "must become a bigger part of the conversation" as the country deals with the strategy to provide all Jamaicans with potable and irrigation water.

He emphasised that the installation of rainwater-harvesting systems in new housing developments would mitigate the predictable drought conditions experienced mainly during the dry months.


http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Drought-triggers-Senate-support-for-rainwater-harvesting_13778719

Drought seems to move mountains where they existed before.  In Santa Fe, New Mexico it took a severe drought a decade ago to move the city to adopt expansive water conservation measures and the county to adopt mandatory rainwater harvesting for larger homes.

In Atlanta it took a drought to enact leading legislative actions legalizing rainwater drinking systems.  The same for California's new water programs and it is the same in Texas.

Although drought is never a good thing, it is forcing governments to evaluate strategies that had no been looked at before.  Mandates are one approach, rebates and incentives another and guidelines a third. Mandates level the playing field so everyone must abide by the same rules and have the bigger, longest term impact at a direct cost to the builder and homeowner.   Rebates and incentives; even paying for the entire systems, have much less impact and cost the government and thus all taxpayers for something only a few will take advantage of. Guidelines are by far the preferred approach in the United States and have even less long-term impact. 

Eventually as drought becomes more and more prevalent guidelines will move to incentives and then to mandates.  Water is a common and the cost of saving it should be a direct cost.  This will drive prices down and lead to the biggest savings of this precious resources that most of us have come to think of as a human right.


  

 

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