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While living on Marco, I purposely turned off all irrigation for several months. My water usage dropped below 3,000 gallons per month. Now, in North Carolina where I rarely need to irrigate, my water usage averages less than 3,000 gallons per month.

A thought: if we can assume that average personal usage for a single-family homeowner maxes out at 3,000 gallons a month, whatever usage the meter indicates above that amount is for irrigation. Since one class of homeowners (condo dwellers) get reuse water for irrigation at a reduced rate and another class (single-family homeowners) do not and actually are the source of reuse water others get for a reduced rate, why not LOWER the rate for single-family homeowners who use over 2,500 - 3,000 gallons to the "reuse rate" (for that matter, even give them a credit for being good citizens and providing reuse water to others!) and then calculate what the resuse rate would have to be to make the system financially sound? Would be an interesting exercise and it seems fair to me at first blush. Essentially you'd have a "personal use" rate which applies to the first 2,500 - 3,000 gallons) and a "irrigation use" rate that applies to everyone equally. Just a thought!

II understand that it was not financially feasible to install reuse lines to single-family homes when the STRP was installed, but not doing so created two classes of citizens: those who had always pooped in the city potty and gotten their effluent back to water their lawns; and, those who were forced to use the city potty whether they wanted to or not and do NOT get their effluent back to water their lawns.

Ed Foster
Former Marco Resident