By Susan Davis, Executive Director, Improve International

This is a follow-up blog to the one raving about the power of meters for management of rural water systems. Household water meters can contribute to conservation, reliable and sustainable services, equity, cost recovery, and transparency. What’s not to love?  Well, it turns out you can’t hurry love of a water meter.

First love: cheap, plentiful water

Household water meters can be pretty powerful, but it can be especially difficult to install them after a family has experienced years of an unlimited supply of water for a low cost.   In Central America, there are many water systems that take advantage of the plentiful and clean natural springs. In these systems, water flows from a spring high in the mountains through pipes to each home. Each family pays on average the equivalent of $1 to $2 per month for their water. Every family pays the same amount, no matter how much water they use, and the rates don’t seem to change very often, if at all. Not surprisingly, the water users love this.

However, if you pay a flat rate, you don’t have much incentive to conserve water. While some families might use water only for drinking, cooking, washing hands, bathing, and washing dishes, their neighbors might be watering gardens, watering the dirt road in front of their homes to keep down dust, giving water to their animals, or irrigating coffee farms.  Overuse of water by some can be a problem as the population of the village increases. Sometimes if there is not enough pressure in the system, people who live in the higher elevations get water only sporadically.

You can’t hurry love

I met Rodolfo Pacheco of CARE El Salvador, who helped facilitate rural water projects under the Global Water Initiative.  This program required the installation of meters for all households. Pacheco  told me “We had to do some social work to get buy-in for meters. Some families were for [the installation of meters] and some were against.  Despite complaints we did it anyway, and it was great.”

Some users were concerned that meters were a first step in privatizing the system.  Also, many users have heard of the possibility of being charged too much when air turns the meters, which can actually occur with inexpensive or faulty meters. (I heard this exact same concern from people in Honduras, and thought it was a rural myth.)

CARE used a stepped approach in several rural communities: first they sponsored interchanges with people from different communities or countries who had experienced the installation of water meters.  This went a long way towards reducing the fears of privatization, increased fees, or faulty meters.  Then, they installed the meters and helped households identify and repair leaks.  Household users could see the reduction in meter readings themselves, and begin to trust the equipment. Only then did the water committee start charging families for the actual quantity of water used. An added benefit is that transparency about costs can increase trust in water managers.

There may be challenges to understand even after meter installation: Catholic Relief Services (CRS) El Salvador is currently doing research into water system management, and initial findings show that some of the installed meters aren’t being used by water committees to charge for actual use.  It would be interesting to know how the meters were introduced.  Was a gradual approach used like CARE’s, or were the meters just installed without helping the water users get used to the idea?