Why do we pay for water?

Answer 1

You pay for it to be delivered to your home. All those pipes, pumps and treatment plants cost money. The water itself is free. If you want free water, put big tanks under your rain gutter down spouts. Of course the gutters and tanks cost money. And you might want to add a little chlorine to make sure it does not have any disease causing bacteria still alive in it, you know from having been washed off the roof. Or if you own the water rights to your land, you can dig a well and pump it out. Of course a well costs money and it takes power to run a pump. And if you do not own the water rights, you will have to get permission from whoever does. Most people do not own the water rights to their land. (Just like most people do not own the mineral rights to their land. If you find gold in your back yard, it belongs to whoever owns the mineral rights, which is probably some mining company.) Most likely the water rights for your land are owned by some water company and they will charge you for taking their water. People have been fighting over water for thousands of years and water rights are a big cash cow for lawyers.

Answer 2

here is why and you are gonna pay lots more soon

water shortage


expanding populations use more and more Potable water(world population has doubled in the last 50 years)
expanding agriculture that needs to keep up with the expanding popultaions uses the most ,,even more than the cities about 75% of all water reserves.

Deep under ground Carbon aquifiers are pumped dry ,by irresponsible egoistic and greedy farmers

.these Carbon Aquifers do not refill them selves causing sink holes often a few miles deep.
potable water is becoming more precious by the day
we will end up killing each other over Potable water
some people already are

overpopulation of an extra 70 million people a year (increasing all the time )and expanding agriculture ,which uses 70% of available potable water supplies ,has brought the good(sweet) water suplies to critical levels ,some countries have been in trouble already quite a while .
Waterharvesting .WILL also help solve the problems


WATER DISTRIBUTION

97%of the Earths water is salt

fresh water is only 3% of all the Earths water
most of it is beyond out reach

now much ice is melting and running into the seas fresh water lost for ever.

STORAGE or Location of % of the fresh water
ice and glaziers 74%
groundwater 800 meters + 13.5 %
groundwater less than 800meters 11.o%
Lakes 0.3%
soils 0.006%
Atmospheric in circulation 0.0035%
rivers 0.03%


frozen land or permafrost is not included and represent an unavailable storage of 40%

so of the 3% about 11.6 ,is easily available to us ,in rivers, lakes and ground water surface aquifers,more and more of this is becoming contaminated

now climate change and desertification because of irresponsible agriculture ,overgrazing and deforrestation is damaging world fresh water production .

POSITIVE ACTIONS
it is a good reason for concern and if we do not rectify matters by changing agricultural methods ,
promote sweet water production,(Masive reforrestation)

take care of what we got (Nature conservation)stop deforrestation

,,plus strong policing on usage,as well as economic usage of water in agriculture

and in the cities stop wasting and contaminating water,

,stop producing more people

we will be in serious trouble all round
and could end up looking like Mars .

Answer 3

If you are on a water system that is owned by someone else, someone has to pay for the electricity to pump the water, the cost of the chemicals to treat the water, the cost of laying the water mains and the upkeep on these pipes, even the cost of safety devices such as fire hydrants. There are taxes to paid on the various structures or land the water utility owns. There is built in overhead with people to operate the system, the office and administration work, even vehicles and tools to maintain the system. Even if a person said, "let taxes pay for this", the city or taxing agency would have to raise taxes to offset the costs of operation.

Years ago, I ran a small system, as superintendent, in a town of 2000 people. It was several hundred $$$$ back then in the early 80's.

If you happen to have a well on your property and it is safe to drink, your cost would be much lower.

Answer 4

So we don't have to walk for miles to bring it back from a river in buckets.

Seriously the city water supply helps keep many people healthy as long as the sewage treatment plants are also working properly. If you look at your water bill, you should go to their website and see all the unhealthy things like giardia, E.coli, and algae, that are taken out of the water before it gets to your home. (^:

Also in certain areas, water hardness can cause colorful film to show up on your dishes in the dishwasher. A water treatment plant can decrease the hardness so your dishwasher will clean dishes better.

Many cities have rain that is polluted from air pollution, so drinking rain water is not such a good idea without a filtration system in place. In the Galapagos Islands, the rain is very clean and you can collect the rain off the roof into barrels for drinking later.

Some people in rainy areas of the world, use rain catches to use in washing clothes and taking showers. So we can pay less for water if we use less water. I catch shower water in a small pitcher and water my house plants with it. The little bits of shampoo in the water don't seem to hurt the house plants at all. (^:

Here is an example of frequently asked questions for the city of Toronto Canada's water supply.

Answer 5

We pay to have our water cleaned, delivered to our houses, and reliably supplied. It takes money to pay the people who work at the water purification plant. It also takes money to maintain the equipment, water lines, meters, and water towers as well as to buy equipment in the first place.

Answer 6

What's more stupid? Paying for tap water in your house or buying bottled water at a store or, worse yet, a convenience store?

Answer 7

Water available in natural form in springs, lakes, rivers are all processed before send it for use. hence money has been spent by civic authorities and federal governments and this has to be made good for not only meeting expenses but also to spend on R&D for making them available in plenty for the future. All energies come with payment.
VR

Answer 8

There are costs associated with the water delivery system

Answer 9

because the water is cleaned and purified so that it is able to be drunken .. then it is transported to your house and run through your pipes so that you can use it to drink and shower, etc.

Answer 10

SOMEONE has to clean out the garbage we shove down the disposals everyday.