Water rates: Past, present, and new challenges

摘要

Methods to generate sufficient revenue to cover the cost of supplying water to consumers have been in place for millennia, although determining water rates has evolved into more complex processes that address more and equally complex needs. In ancient times cities could develop only if sufficient water supplies were available, which necessitated the presence of rivers or wells. If water was not immediately accessible, means were devised to transport water into the cities from elsewhere. Jerusalem had a leaky aqueduct made of limestone blocks. The Greeks built masonry conduits to bring water to their cities, even boring tunnels by hand. A 4,200-ft tunnel (1,280 m) was built in Athens more than 2,500 years ago. Marcus Agrippa, appointed in 33 BC as the first water commissioner of Rome, is credited with the advancement of high-quality water transportation works. Eventually about 200 cities in the Roman colonies had aqueducts. A famous one, the Pont du Gard, still stands near the French city of Nimes. In the beginning, these Roman public works projects would be financed from war pillage and from contributions of wealthy donors. Income from taxes became more common during subsequent centuries of the Roman Empire. An infrastructure benefit to the people, aqueducts were not expected to pay for themselves (Aicher, 1995). Overflow water could be sold to private citizens, and the rates charged for these water sales were an early form of water rates-possibly the earliest known record of water rates.