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whether customers are being penalized enough for higher consumption or if they've <br />established a standard consumption for their home no matter the rat, based on the <br />rate fluctuations over that same period. Even when the water rates were lowered <br />by 20% in 2008-2009, Mr. Miller reported that the City had actually seen the <br />reverse happen with more consumption when rates increased. Mr. Miller <br />questioned if that indicated there was not enough incentive offered to conserve <br />water or homeowners were simply not willing to move beyond their established <br />household standards of consumption. <br />Reviewing summertime consumption during that same period, and also factoring <br />in annual rainfall, Mr. Miller noted that aggregate behavior did change when there <br />was more rainfall. While it didn't matter for some homeowners in the amount they <br />ran their sprinkler or irrigation system compared to the amount of rainfall received, <br />Mr. Miller noted in the aggregate it did fluctuate indicating some were making a <br />conscious decision to adjust their sprinkling habits accordingly. However, while <br />indicating more fluctuation in ranges, Mr. Miller questioned if it was statistically <br />significant even though to him it seemed to indicate consumers were adjusting their <br />behavior and consumption accordingly. However, Mr. Miller questioned again if <br />this was due to not enough incentive to conserve or lack of interest in changing <br />established behavior for consumption habits. <br />Specific to water conservation, Mr. Miller noted higher tiers could be created for <br />those deemed higher consumption customers, but noted there were few people <br />fitting into that higher water category. Historically, Mr. Miller reported that most <br />single-family homes in Roseville used 15,000 to 16,000 gallons of water per quarter <br />or less than that. Based on that historical data, Mr. Miller noted that compared to <br />other inner -ring suburb homes, Roseville's consumption was very low; and further <br />noted that the majority of Roseville homes didn't have a built in lawn sprinkler <br />system. While unsure how to make a determination, based on his analysis, Mr. <br />Miller questioned if water rates were even doubled whether it would incent people <br />to use less water. <br />Mr. Miller suggested the most effective step may be to increase education and <br />outreach by providing information to residents on benefits of low volume water <br />devises, and awareness of how little water it actually takes for an established lawn <br />to proactively incent water conservation. <br />Chair Stenlund suggested the number of snowbirds from one winter to the neat may <br />skew data; but Mr. Miller responded that may be, but historically from one year to <br />the neat, his analysis had shown little change in the number of snowbirds each year. <br />Member Seigler noted with a tiered rate structure it may actually erroneously <br />punish households with a lot of kids or even a few kids. <br />Mr. Miller reported that this had been found out in trying the tier system several <br />years ago and difficulty in defining tiers to reward those making an effort to <br />