New Tiered water pricing in Raleigh

You may have noticed that there has been a change to the web presence and billing cycle of the Raleigh water utilities. As I perused the site today, I discovered the introduction of a new pricing plan for Raleigh residents. From this page:

Beginning in November, Raleigh and Garner residential customers will be billed using a new, tiered billing structure with new rates. Only single-meter residences are changing to tiered billing. Apartments with master meters are not changing to tiered rates.

There are 3 tiers based on consumption. Each tier is billed at a different rate. Those who use less water will pay less.

INSIDE Raleigh and Garner city limits
Residential Water Rates

• Tier 1 = 1-4 CCF billed at $2.28
• Tier 2= 5-10 CCF billed at $3.80
• Tier 3= 11+ CCF billed at $5.07

In response, I have written this letter to be sent to UtilityBilling@raleighnc.gov:

Hello-

I am frustrated to read that you are implementing a tiered rate program on your water usage fees. In general, when I think of bulk consumption, pricing usually goes down per unit sold. In this case, you are charging more per unit sold.

I understand the motivation behind this kind of structure. The ultimate goal is that of conservation. However, for those of us with several people living in a household, there will never be anything we can do apart from taking a two week vacation that will reduce our consumption to the 1-4 CCF per month range.

Not only are we in essence being punished for having more people in our household, we're being charged a higher rate per CCF than we previously were. (It appears that my rate was $2.65/CCF)

I find this analogous to driving to the gas station to fill up with fuel and finding out that my charge per gallon varies dependent upon the size of my gas tank. By extension, since the size of the gas tanks are generally proportioned to the size of the vehicle, it would be like charging gas at a variable per gallon rate based on how many people were in the car.

Can you please explain how this approach is a fair way to charge for a utility we all depend on? If you feel there are abusers of the resources available to us, then charge them for their usage, but don't make the rest of us bear the burden of those who (in your opinion) overuse their share of water.

Chick-Fil-A, the service economy, and your church

In 2005, Janet and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary with the best vacation ever. We saved money for months and months and blew it all in one week. We went on a cruise to the western Caribbean ports on Royal Caribbean. We loved it!

One of the things about cruiselines and high-end vacation places like Disney is that they are selling you an experience. The commodity is more than the boat, the hotel, the beach, the mouse ears, whatever you may be doing. The commodity is actually everything surrounding it.

Our family has become regular Chick-Fil-A customers. Especially on Tuesday nights when with the purchase of a regular "value" meal a kid's meal is free. The restaurant at this location usually has "the cow," a balloon person, face painter, crafts, plus other freebies for the kids. They love it. We enjoy it.

But the thing about Chick-Fil-A, and the thing about its astounding growth in the last few years relates back to the experience it creates for its customers. Consider this:

• What other restaurants, fast food or otherwise hand out so many coupons for free food?
• What other restaurants have specific family-friendly weekly nights? I mean more than just "kids eat free," I mean actively giving away desserts, doing fun stuff for kids.
• Where else can you go to see a cow walking around on two legs?
• What other fast food restaurant features a hostess that comes out, offers to remove your trash and tray and get you a refill? And no, they don't accept tips.
• The phrase "My pleasure." In place of "your welcome." I would wager the same consulting firm that trained the Royal Caribbean staff must have also trained the CFA staff. The difference is subtle, but significant. "Your Welcome" implies automatic response. I-say-this because you-said-that kind of thing. It also carries a connotation of "I didn't mind doing that for you." "My Pleasure," on the other hand has much stronger service overtones. It says "I really wanted to do that for you, and I'd do it again."
• What other fast food restaurant is specifically and intentionally closed on Sundays because it is The Lord's Day?

Finally, the refills. Has anybody encountered a Chick-Fil-A where the soft drink dispensers are available for you to use? I used to think it was a mistake for CFA to not put them out for everyone to serve themselves. Now I am convinced it is intentional. I believe they keep them behind the counter because they want you to come ask for a refill. They want to force the service interaction, and create another opportunity to say "My Pleasure."

So how do the Chick-Fil-A principles apply to our churches? What lessons of service and kindness are Chick-Fil-A stores teaching by example that the church should already know? If a fast food restaurant can exemplify Christian values, stick firmly to biblical principles, and produce a quality product enough to generate a blog post like this, how much more should people be walking away from a gathering of any kind at a church and want nothing more than to come back?

What Hath Hanna Wrought

The tropical storm that flew through North Carolina the other day left us quite a bit of water. This is good because we have been in a drought for the last two years or so, but after this rain fall we may officially be out of it. Of course, the quantity of rain was not good for everyone as many communities in our area experienced flooding. This is the graphic seen on WRAL's weather page. It looks like the 5.19" reading was taken at RDU, which is on the other side of town from us.


Using our handy-dandy rain gauge, given to me by none other than the mayor of Boone herself (Sheri's mom!), we received 3.6" of water in our yard. That would have been over about an 18 hour period.

Disposal Reversal

A while ago I posted about the city of Raleigh's decision to ban new and replacement garbage disposals. Now there is word that the city council may vote to reverse this decision next week.

Jerry Ryder, the president of disposal manufacturer InSinkErator, who flew to Raleigh from Wisconsin last month to lobby for ending the ban, brought reinforcements Tuesday to support his effort.

Kevin Keener, a Purdue University professor of food science, and Kendall Christiansen, a member of New York City's water board, both told Raleigh council members that there was no link between ground-up food scraps and clogged sewer lines.

Some council members said Tuesday that they felt they didn't have all of the facts when they voted for the ban on March 4.

Seems like we should try to get our facts before we make a vote on an issue, yes?

In the Nick of Time

I heard this might be coming, and I couldn't believe it. I have never heard of such a thing, but it looks like more and more municipalities are adopting measures to eliminate Garbage Disposals.

First, can we all please agree on what these things are called? Are they Garbage Disposals? Garbage Disposers? or, Erators?

We have one in our house. The imprint on the drain collar actually says "InsinkErator" on top and "Food Disposer" on the bottom. All this is fresh in my mind because I just installed it last weekend.

I hated the one that was in there--probably the original one and praise the Lord, it quit working a couple of weeks ago. A perfect excuse to get a new one. This thing was amazing. When you turned it on, it sounded like the whole kitchen was about to take off--or fall apart. And to make things even better, it didn't ever seem to want to do it's job. Usually when you turn these things on, they suck down whatever food is lying nearby. But with this one, you had to run the water AND shove the food scraps down in there!

So, it quit working. First, it made a terrible rattling noise. I shined a light inside. Couldn't really see anything--not that I knew what I was looking for--flipped the switch, more grating noise. A day or two later, nothing. Just a buzz. Wouldn't move. PERFECT!

I bought a new one a few days later. A Badger. A $100, 3/4 HP, 3 year in home warranty, "noise baffling" disposal (disposer). I spent last Saturday afternoon taking the old one out, putting the new one in and it works great! It's so quiet! It chops up the food. I never knew I could be so excited over a garbage disposal (disposer).

So now, there is this news item informing me that I squeaked it in under the wire. The city is banning disposals.

Under the ban, homeowners can continue to use existing disposals, but no new devices can be installed and existing ones can't be replaced when they quit working....Violators face fines of up to $25,000 per day.

Why pick on the lowly disposal (erator)?

City officials said putting food and grease through a disposal and into the municipal sewer system clogs the lines and frequently causes back-ups and overflows.

Raleigh has had almost 100 sewer overflows in the last three years, with raw sewage sometimes flowing into area streams. The state Division of Water Quality has threatened to fine the city for each overflow if it doesn't correct the problem.

Really? So this is going to cause people to put less down the drain? Grease will slide down with or without a disposal (disposer) and whatever food items can go down the drain will likely be larger than if they had first run through an erator (disposal, disposer). I just hope ours lasts for years and years, or until they alleviate the ban!