And Atlanta almost learned that painful lesson.
During the last drought, instead of doing the logical thing and
using simple market forces like raising rates to solve the problem,
they imposed various use restrictions. Of course, what
happened? Use went down, and now rates have had to be raised
to make up the shortfall! Duh!!! Effectively, the those who were
efficient during the drought have been punished anyway!
Most of the water is controlled by the Federal government, and
the Federal government decided that the water was better used
for other interests, like maintaining a shellfish population
hundreds of miles away near the gulf. (which somehow had
managed to survive for eons before the construction of Buford
Dam, and certainly would have been high & dry had the Army
Corps of Incompetent Engineers not been there in the first place)
So the logical answer is to develop storage capacity controlled by
state and local communities. Only time will tell if they will follow
through, or become complacent until the next drought hits.
