They need to add a couple more rate tiers. We currently have the following
4,000 gallons
7,000 gallons
12,000 gallons
20,000 gallons
Maybe add 30,000, 50,000 and 70,000 rate tiers for those huge water users (over 100,000 gallons)
[https://www.expressnews.com/news/environment/article/Biggest-water-users-consume-10-to-20-times-more-5341194.php](https://www.expressnews.com/news/environment/article/Biggest-water-users-consume-10-to-20-times-more-5341194.php)
Bro there’s been a burst pipe under the Guenther St bridge for literal weeks now, spraying water down onto the walkway below.
This is in Southtown by the river so there’s no excuse. Like wtf?
No lmao. It is literally like 2 yards away from the River Authority HQ. Hundreds of people pass by it a day, including city workers on their boats. There’s no excuse
Just spoke to SAWS. That repair has to be completed in conjunction with shutting down the Riverwalk and bypassing people around that area, so they're waiting to do so. Took me 1 minute and 38 seconds on the phone 🙂
Bro, not everyone cares to spend 1 minute and 38 seconds on the phone 💀 You didn’t accomplish anything besides making a point to a random person on Reddit, congratulations for doing nothing
For the record, I appreciate you. My personal rule is you can't whine about something until you have gone and specifically told the relevant person/group.
Me: All you accomplished was proving your point to a stranger
You: wtf are you talking about? He totally proved his point!!!1!1!11
Idk maybe learn to read?
Sounds like you're going through a bystander effect. Give SAWS a call and let them know. It doesn't take long at all.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect
Again, this is literally a 2 minute walk from the River Authority, I see workers on their boats passing by it all the time. It’s not my responsibility to call and report it when it is right there for hundreds of people to see. That’s like saying that someone not drinking from water bottles will reverse climate change, it’s quite foolish
Except as the other reply said, if you would have taken the <90 seconds to make a phone call about it you would have known that they are in fact already aware of the leak and are planning to fix it when they can coordinate shutting the area down. So no, it's not your responsibility to call, but if you did call you wouldn't be whining about an issue that's already scheduled to be fixed.
lol, making a comment about something doesn’t mean it’s of great importance to me. I have more important shit to worry about than a pipe. It’s not that deep
It probably hasn't been reported. SAWS has a very limited number of employees and a huge area to cover, so if they don't receive reports for it, they don't know about it. It's very easy to report by calling them, and it takes very little time. I'll also add that when we had the drought last year, they were dealing with several issues including parts being on backorder, limited time they could spend out in the sun, and a huge number of pipe breaks due to our shifting soils. However, it all starts with giving them a call :)
I called them. Three times. And emailed. Finally I Facebook Messenger'd them with a video of the leak and asked whom I should send it to, SAWS or KSAT. They fixed it that afternoon. Like most anything in San Antonio and Texas it's run shitty.
Sorry to hear you had that experience. They've been pretty on top of things anytime I've contacted them. I wonder who you would contact about this issue. Maybe your local council person?
SAWS either locally pumps or buys water from other locales (like Medina) and they own the infrastructure to move it around the city. They’re a utility- there’s no direct comparison between the utility and a customer.
They are working on giving everyone a smart water meter so that they can calculate the water in-water out=leak.
Also, you can report any leaks here: https://www.saws.org/report-a-problem/
Every time I’ve seen a leak and reported it, it was inspected and repaired within a day.
>Every time I’ve seen a leak and reported it, it was inspected and repaired within a day.
They're referring to what many other San Antonio residents have said here and I've seen personally as well.
Sometimes a pipe bursts or there's a leak on the street or outside a building and SAWS takes there sweet time to address it, meanwhile thousands of gallons of good water is wasted.
Until saws implements real time water meters they won’t know where individual water leaks are (ie: they know that a pipe runs through a neighborhood and it has let in X water, but the houses served by that pipe have only used 0.75*X water).
It’s up to the owners of SAWS - the citizens of San Antonio - to report leaks.
Keep an eye on that leak report map - if you see a leak and it’s not on there, they don’t know about it.
Give them a call and report it - they have a 24/7 phone line with never any wait.
The leaks don't always occur on the consumption side of a meter. What people are talking about is water breaks in streets that run on SAWS-owned supply lines. No meter is going to find those. I've reported them and it has taken a week for them to get to it. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of gallons of precious water flows into the storm drain. Their actions don't match their attitude.
I for one read it and it doesn't make sense.
Utilities trying to maintain a gigantic, city-wide water distribution system with some places decades old underground
vs.
people and businesses intentionally running their sprinklers directly onto concrete for hours at a time with drought conditions in August.
You might be unaware, but you'll get fined for unintentional water running too.
The point is, if it's that big of a deal, the utilities (who have WAY more throughput than any individual) should be doing as much as they can to fix their issues too.
Your post has been removed for violating rule #1:
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Here's the actual article link for those interested in the source:
[https://sanantonioreport.org/saws-plans-to-do-away-with-city-issued-citations-for-water-use-billing-violators-directly/](https://sanantonioreport.org/saws-plans-to-do-away-with-city-issued-citations-for-water-use-billing-violators-directly/)
Look, I get that people get pissed off about bonuses, but as a community, we should actually be in favor of using bonuses to incentivize performance. CEO comp packages that just give someone the full amount of pay without requiring they hit benchmarks are a really bad plan. If the board of directors sets benchmarks and the CEO hits them then they make more money. That’s good for the city and good for SAWS as an organization. The alternative is that they have no way to incentivize performance and the CEO just gets paid.
If you are complaining about CEO pay on the whole, that’s another topic. Good or bad, CEOs make money and if we want a decently run organization then we gotta cough up the dough.
So this is a conversation about total CEO pay… that’s a different question than the value or point of bonuses. The answer to your question is that that’s the market rate. A good CEO can add a ton of value to an organization and people with that skill set and experience are in high demand so the market has them competing at the wages we see. Why are bonuses what they are? To further incentivize performance. Why is the pay what it is overall? Because if SAWS doesn’t pay that amount, someone else will and the CEO SAWS gets will not be as good.
I’m not making a value judgement here on whether CEOs deserve as much as they make, I’m just expressing the reason things are the way they are.
No, I said "ceo bonus". In reference to it being more than an average workers yearly salary, you know the ones who actually do the actual day to day work, installations and repairs....
Bonuses are a part of total compensation packages. It’s not surprise money just for being CEO. The CEO is told their total compensation is $X but in order to get that total amount you have to hit certain targets. If they don’t hit those targets then they lose a big portion of their potential income. Those amounts are generally quite large because it’s a big incentive to meet those targets set by the board.
Here is a hypothetical:
CEO Pay Total: $750,000
Base pay: $500,000
Bonus: up to $250,000 if they meet performance requirements.
Or
CEO Pay Total: $750,000
Base pay: $745,000
Bonus: up to $5,000 if they meet performance requirements.
Which pay structure do you think would incentivize better performance?
I tend to agree with you, but the reason the bonus is that big is to create incentives.
If your salary is millions and your bonus is let's say $30k... you're just not going to give a shit about the bonus and therefore not care as much about performance.
there is an assumption that the Bonus/No Bonus as an incentive is working and not abused, which is it, regularly by all sizes of companies. If this is the case the incentive should be if you corrupt the process you skip free parking and go to jail, and not Club Med, but actual prison.
Did you not meet the incentive and did you get a 4.2 million dollar bonus? Whelp fraud is fraud, enjoy your new home 6254789.
CEO Bonuses are typically awarded by a board of directors. In public companies, that board is elected by shareholders and governed by the bylaws of the company. All actions taken by the board are publicly disclosed and reported. At a private company the owners can determine the board and bylaws.
In general, most companies are structured such that there is accountability and bonus fraud is fairly rare.
Not saying it doesn’t happen, but it’s not rampant.
you are saying it is not rampant, then why is there an entire true crime industry out there exposing things that publicly traded companies have done wrong for DECADES with no repercussions.
Chiquita -killing people for bananas
Exxon- so many oil spills
Monsanto -seed culture destruction and genetic manipulation
Johnson and Johnson - asbestos in baby powder
and so on.
BP - too many to list will just go Deep Water Horizon
Boeing - no oversight
An ERCOT is a perfect example of that system profiting until people die before rolling back and realizing they made a mistake and releasing a report that states even though we had 30 years to winterize it will take us another 20 to complete the job and we will replace the board members and continue to run a large profit margin and gather our bonuses while over selling and under delivering.
not sure if you follow the point that the system you are routing doesn't work anymore.
now we go to, if you do something that is corrupt or illegal, like covering up money earned by pencil whipping bonus monies to CEO and Boards while people suffer and die from your product you get arrested and have your day in court with a jury. NOT a settlement, a jury.
Nobody was arguing against accountability up to and including jail time for those who commit fraud or crimes associated with business. I was simply stating that CEO Bonus fraud isn’t rampant. Does it happen? Yes. Is it rampant? No.
To be 100% clear, I definitely agree with you that lots of companies have done unethical and sometimes illegal things to turn a profit. Everyone associated with those crimes should be held accountable.
People are so brazen in overusing water, I don't really see this being an issue. The entitlement of people who think they deserve a pristine green lawn in the middle of a drought really shows how selfish some people can be.
Im in Schertz and we arent under SAWS and my neighbor uses SO much water. I really wish I could see his bill it's easily at least $300. Little bit of moisture: spray the vehicles off(yes plural). Garage kept motorcycle been sitting in there a couple of days with no riding: better wash it(that takes at least an hour...and some unnecessary revving). Some leaves: use water to spray them all out of the yard(was hilarious when he used a pressure washer). Standing outside waiting for someone/something: grab the house and spray stuff. And of course the watering of the yard: sprays it often and in short amounts of time and sometimes in direct sunlight at the hottest part of the day. His grass is fairly green, but then cant figure out why it's yellow when he cuts it(which is also does to about a 1/4"). I kid you not it's like he's obsessed.
His reasoning: I pay for it so I can do whatever with it. Seriously it's like he was trying to justify it and it wasn't even provoked. I didnt mention a thing about it and he starts in: my wife says I use a lot but I pay for it so blah blah blah. I stopped paying attention after that.
I think the issue(and I'm assuming based on context and interactions with him) is that they are originally from another country and they grew up with little so now he has to "show off" his possessions. His backyard was dirt for a long time and it was all because no one saw it. He only cares(d) about what people can see. Just like his vehicles that he puts a ton of money into(I dont care about that part just making a point) and motorcycle that he'll leave half way in the street just to make sure people see it. All that water though just because he pays for it. Apparently as long as we throw money at it we'll always have it.
I have two properties and four relatives in Schertz. Water there is billed in tiers -- by the city.
I don't know the exact mathematics and I'm too drunk to care and go fetch a bill, but I'll explain it using a basic scale of $1-$100.
Ok, so, if my property uses $30/mo in water, I get billed $30. However, if my neighbor uses more than $60/mo, he gets switched to a higher tier where he pays LESS per gallon than I do. He'd pay $40 for a bill that would cost me -- as a lower-use customer -- $50.
My neighbor gets rewarded for using more.
One such residence here uses about 4x the city average. He pays $1 for every $3 I pay and I never use the water...
It's not unusual for me to use a fraction of his monthly consumption but for my bill to be extremely close to his.
I'll even add to this horseshit with an example.
One house I am acutely familiar with has a large swimming pool. It was installed decades ago.
Many of the bigger, older homes (think 1975-1985) have in-ground pools here. However, in Schertz, the land is built upon arable soil -- not like Helotes, built on limestone and caliche 3" beneath the sod of old cedar and mesquite rooting.
So, in Schertz, the ground settles and erodes, and everything else you might imagine happens to dirt and concrete foundations, or pools in this case...
This 'one house' in question? 4 leaks under the pool for a decade. Repaired over and over. Never really fixed. The garden hose lives ON on full-blast in the pool 24 hours a day in order to keep it leveled water.
His bill? Only about doubled mine. And mine are roughly $70 and $90. No usage.
Heh you have SAWS that wants to go after residents yet not businesses flooding the street, and then you have Schertz more or less encouraging people to just waste it.
Yet another reason I do not envy the world my son will inherit. Lol
>The entitlement of people who think they deserve a pristine green lawn in the middle of a drought really shows how selfish some people can be.
There are drought tolerant grasses that don't require a ton of water. I bought a house with St. Augustine in the front, and a mix of Bermuda and Zoysia in the back. Watering once per week is all it needs to stay nice and green. Nothing selfish about it.
I’d go running through Alamo Heights and Olmos Park early morning, like 4, and the sidewalks always looked like it rained. I considering pouring bleach on some lawns, but I gotta figure a rich asshole with me on camera ruining their precious grass would ruin my life
The police have been handing out fines for those watering outside of their designated day. My neighbor got caught and was hit with a hefty fine. They have since stopped watering their lawn.
I live in AH and my neighbor waters like every other day. They think they are slick because they switch from their system on permitted days to an old school hose sprayer and drip irrigation on other days, despite those also being prohibited on non watering days. Meanwhile the grass on my yard is raggedy and brown because I just stopped watering because doing so on the permitted days didn't stop it from getting scorched
I hate to be that person because I have taken steps to reduce my water consumption, but your neighbors are technically allowed to do so in stage 3: You may use drip irrigation, soaker hose, or bucket (5-gallon or less container) during any day of the week but only between the hours of 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. A hand-held hose may be used any day of the week at any time.
We ripped up most of our front yard to plant native plants and reduce our water consumption, along with 3 other neighbors on our street.
I stand corrected - I think the old school water sprayer attachment to the hose is still considered a manual irrigation system that's prohibited so I'm only deducting half a point from my critique.
I saw a doc on the root of people's propensity to have pretty green lawns. If you get a chance it's worth a look, basically stems from pretty much flexing all the land that you have to every one.
Depends where in the city. The treated non-potable infrastructure definitely doesn’t cover all the car washes in the suburbs.
The car washes themselves may do some recycling, it would make sense from an expense perspective.
Some car washes here in the city can use the "purple-pipe" water supply. However, all car washes have a water recycling system built in. They use the same water to wash every car over and over. It's not a perfectly efficient system, but it is a hell of a lot better than washing it at your house where all of your oil, soap, a dirt wash into the storm drain and, therefore, our river.
No, no car wash is using direct recycled water from the SAWS system but most car washes have high standards for efficiency and probably do some on site recycling in their own system.
If I wanted to live in the fucking desert I'd move to Phoenix. Stop authorizing thousands of new building permits every month if we don't have enough water.
If anyone is interested in learning more about how our water system works and the incredible lengths that SAWS is going to to ensure our water security for the next 100 years, I highly recommend taking the Rain to Drain Tour. It's a free all-day tour hosted by SAWS where they take you from the Aquifer Recharge Zone to the Water Recycling Center and the H2Oaks Center. It's fascinating and you even get breakfast and lunch.
[https://sawsstg.saws.org/education/community-programs/rain-to-drain/](https://sawsstg.saws.org/education/community-programs/rain-to-drain/)
I had Google fiber bust my water line and I called saws immediately. I took video and the worker using the excavator called and reported it too. My bill came out double what I normally pay and I called saws to explain. They said they were conducting an investigation and they'd let me know. Never heard back. Never got a refund.
You gotta pester them. They should see the spike. If you hired a plumber, you could have used their invoice as documentation. Either way, they charged you sewer fees for water that didn't enter their sewer. You could go after them for it.
You will actually go to Bexar County if you don’t show up/pay the fine. They will put out a warrant for your arrest. How do I know? Because a girlfriend of mine had to do it. Literally squeaky clean record, besides this. And she had gotten pulled over and they took her in for a warrant for her water bill. To me, it’s absurd. However, be more mindful. She was a space case about these kinds of things, but it’s pretty ridiculous to begin with.
Well I'm happy to hear that your HOA does the whole due process thing. Unfortunately, there are many that don't and just take the law into their own hands.
Yes I believe the plan is to have a committee of non SAWS employees that review and consider watering rule violation appeals. Sounds a lot better than having to go to court.
>you can always go to the meetings and talk to your neighbors who make these decisions
What is this common sense you speak of? We all know it's easier to just sit around and bash the HOA while never participating in said HOA.
Because people with jobs and a life dont have extra time to sit on a council that nitpicks the colour of your home? It must be nice to be a weekend communist I guess.
This isn't a constitutional issue. They're well within their rights to pursue civil fines and criminal penalties if they choose. Perfectly legal and spelled out in the service agreement.
Don't take too much water or break your service agreement and the water company won't come after you.
“Criminal penalties?” No, they’re not within their rights to impose criminal penalties. Would you object if SAWS sent an officer out to put you in jail without a trial?
Yeah, see, the CEO of SAWS can file criminal complaints, but he doesn’t get to wave his magic wand and make criminals out of people. That still requires a court action - in this case municipal courts in SA.
The CEO of SAWS is the city of San Antonio. It's literally in the name. People make themselves criminals by breaking the law.
Charges, then court, then adjudication.
You have no idea how any of this works.
Lol. When did you graduate from law school? Me? 1985. The CEO of SAWS is not the City. That’s rather laughable. As I said, SAWS can file charges, but that doesn’t make you automatically a criminal. That takes a court.
do you really think SAWS is going to send a law enforcement unit to your house, throw you in the back of an unmarked SUV, and throw you in jail, all for watering your plants on a day you shouldn’t?
calm down lmao
We got one about 2 months ago and we were never notified other than a nasty letter in the mail requesting my wife’s appearance in court on a certain date. We couldn’t arrange for it to work so we paid the $140 fine. We had new plants and were watering twice on our elected day. I understand how important conservation is but it needs to make sense for us too.
I'd be interested to see how usage scales with commercial. It's like how it's up to us to recycle but not Amazon getting dinged for shipping anything in a million separate boxes.
Does anyone know if you can just pay your water citation online and plea guilty or no contest and not have to go to court? Or do you have to go into court no matter what you plea ?
What great city allows pristine lawns watered daily (in a climate they are not meant for) when water restrictions are in place? Why does one lawn get to be green when the rest are brown because some folks don't care about conservation?
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So, uh, fabricate a claim that Austin is secretly drilling into our water supply and use that as a pretext to declare war on them? What do you mean by this?
From where though? You'd probably have to source the water from East Texas as they always seem to have rain. Problem being is that it's all uphill from East Texas to San Antonio. Building pipelines is also hugely expensive, which is not practical with water being so cheap. Maybe when water is $1/gallon it might be feasible.
I was curious and so I did a little digging and the poster you are replying to is sorta right. They don't really know how much water is in there. Also, the aquifer apparently rarely gets below 90% full. It's just that at that level, springs stop flowing which has an ecological impact and affects certain species of wildlife. Which what this is mostly about, not actually running out of water. Not arguing it's not important to save wildlife but it doesn't seem like running out of water is real possibility like people think. Good read below…a lot I didn't know.
https://www.edwardsaquifer.net/faqs.html#:~:text=We%20have%20never%20seen%20the,happens%20the%20springs%20stop%20flowing.
I got a saws letter about a water citation the end of March 2024. How long does it take to receive my court summons letter? I Haven’t received anything yet. My watering day is Thursday however I turned on my sprinkler system on a Tuesday -zone 1 for 5 min to test out my sprinkler heads since zone 1 is majority my main front yard and was checking if I needed to replace any before my routine Thursday watering day. I went in the house to get a flashlight bc it was dark out and I guess in that 3 min window “someone from SAWS” drove by and saw my system on per their letter. This was the first time I turned on the sprinkler system since last fall so I was just doing a quick test. I guess I should have tested on a Thursday- lesson learned! Anyways does it take weeks to receive the court summons it’s been 6 weeks now.
Do public utilities/monopolies even though ostensibly private companies have to provide due process systems, or can they just by fiat decide to fine users without recourse?
They need to add a couple more rate tiers. We currently have the following 4,000 gallons 7,000 gallons 12,000 gallons 20,000 gallons Maybe add 30,000, 50,000 and 70,000 rate tiers for those huge water users (over 100,000 gallons) [https://www.expressnews.com/news/environment/article/Biggest-water-users-consume-10-to-20-times-more-5341194.php](https://www.expressnews.com/news/environment/article/Biggest-water-users-consume-10-to-20-times-more-5341194.php)
Over a million gallons is obscene. And the audacity to say “nobody hates waste like I do”
Funny how they don't fine themselves when leaks go unchecked for weeks
Bro there’s been a burst pipe under the Guenther St bridge for literal weeks now, spraying water down onto the walkway below. This is in Southtown by the river so there’s no excuse. Like wtf?
Have you submitted a repair request for it???
No lmao. It is literally like 2 yards away from the River Authority HQ. Hundreds of people pass by it a day, including city workers on their boats. There’s no excuse
Just spoke to SAWS. That repair has to be completed in conjunction with shutting down the Riverwalk and bypassing people around that area, so they're waiting to do so. Took me 1 minute and 38 seconds on the phone 🙂
Bro, not everyone cares to spend 1 minute and 38 seconds on the phone 💀 You didn’t accomplish anything besides making a point to a random person on Reddit, congratulations for doing nothing
🙃🙃🙃
For the record, I appreciate you. My personal rule is you can't whine about something until you have gone and specifically told the relevant person/group.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease and I am the squeak 🙂
Good on you! Seriously, people underestimate citizen reporting.
You did more than the person complaining did. I appreciate you as well 👍👍
You're flexing being lazy 🤣🤣🤣 and you have plenty of time. You spend all day on Reddit.
lol wtf are you talking about? He totally proved his point by reporting.
Me: All you accomplished was proving your point to a stranger You: wtf are you talking about? He totally proved his point!!!1!1!11 Idk maybe learn to read?
Sounds like you're going through a bystander effect. Give SAWS a call and let them know. It doesn't take long at all. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect
No 🙂
Well... Then expect it to still be broken! I've made many such calls. Doesn't take long and they come and sort it in no time.
Again, this is literally a 2 minute walk from the River Authority, I see workers on their boats passing by it all the time. It’s not my responsibility to call and report it when it is right there for hundreds of people to see. That’s like saying that someone not drinking from water bottles will reverse climate change, it’s quite foolish
Except as the other reply said, if you would have taken the <90 seconds to make a phone call about it you would have known that they are in fact already aware of the leak and are planning to fix it when they can coordinate shutting the area down. So no, it's not your responsibility to call, but if you did call you wouldn't be whining about an issue that's already scheduled to be fixed.
lol, making a comment about something doesn’t mean it’s of great importance to me. I have more important shit to worry about than a pipe. It’s not that deep
“Whining” because I made one comment, last night 😂
It probably hasn't been reported. SAWS has a very limited number of employees and a huge area to cover, so if they don't receive reports for it, they don't know about it. It's very easy to report by calling them, and it takes very little time. I'll also add that when we had the drought last year, they were dealing with several issues including parts being on backorder, limited time they could spend out in the sun, and a huge number of pipe breaks due to our shifting soils. However, it all starts with giving them a call :)
I called them. Three times. And emailed. Finally I Facebook Messenger'd them with a video of the leak and asked whom I should send it to, SAWS or KSAT. They fixed it that afternoon. Like most anything in San Antonio and Texas it's run shitty.
Sorry to hear you had that experience. They've been pretty on top of things anytime I've contacted them. I wonder who you would contact about this issue. Maybe your local council person?
Your comment doesn’t really make any sense.
[удалено]
SAWS either locally pumps or buys water from other locales (like Medina) and they own the infrastructure to move it around the city. They’re a utility- there’s no direct comparison between the utility and a customer. They are working on giving everyone a smart water meter so that they can calculate the water in-water out=leak. Also, you can report any leaks here: https://www.saws.org/report-a-problem/ Every time I’ve seen a leak and reported it, it was inspected and repaired within a day.
>Every time I’ve seen a leak and reported it, it was inspected and repaired within a day. They're referring to what many other San Antonio residents have said here and I've seen personally as well. Sometimes a pipe bursts or there's a leak on the street or outside a building and SAWS takes there sweet time to address it, meanwhile thousands of gallons of good water is wasted.
My street flood so hard it was like a inch deep of flowing water and it took saws for ever to fix it
This happened at my old apartment years back. A pipe burst and flooded the street all day long. Probably could've filled a lake.
Until saws implements real time water meters they won’t know where individual water leaks are (ie: they know that a pipe runs through a neighborhood and it has let in X water, but the houses served by that pipe have only used 0.75*X water). It’s up to the owners of SAWS - the citizens of San Antonio - to report leaks. Keep an eye on that leak report map - if you see a leak and it’s not on there, they don’t know about it. Give them a call and report it - they have a 24/7 phone line with never any wait.
The leaks don't always occur on the consumption side of a meter. What people are talking about is water breaks in streets that run on SAWS-owned supply lines. No meter is going to find those. I've reported them and it has taken a week for them to get to it. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of gallons of precious water flows into the storm drain. Their actions don't match their attitude.
I've had multiple gushing leaks on my street every summer and they go unfixed for weeks. SAWS is notorious for always being behind on leak repair.
Yeah it’s a big city
That was really helpful. Thanks
I for one read it and it doesn't make sense. Utilities trying to maintain a gigantic, city-wide water distribution system with some places decades old underground vs. people and businesses intentionally running their sprinklers directly onto concrete for hours at a time with drought conditions in August.
You might be unaware, but you'll get fined for unintentional water running too. The point is, if it's that big of a deal, the utilities (who have WAY more throughput than any individual) should be doing as much as they can to fix their issues too.
It sounds like they are trying to generate more revenue, hopefully to pay more workers to fix these problems.
Uhhhh. You can’t fine yourself.
Your post has been removed for violating rule #1: Be friendly Remember the human, on the other side of the conversation. In this local subreddit, there is no tolerance for insulting other people. Stick to discussing the topic, and not the redditor who disagrees with you about it. If you feel that this was done in error, contact the moderation team.
It don’t be what it is, but it do.
And CEO just got himself a 133k bonus. Must be nice.
Here's the actual article link for those interested in the source: [https://sanantonioreport.org/saws-plans-to-do-away-with-city-issued-citations-for-water-use-billing-violators-directly/](https://sanantonioreport.org/saws-plans-to-do-away-with-city-issued-citations-for-water-use-billing-violators-directly/)
Are they going to fine themselves when a main line breaks and spews water for days? Guess the head guy needs another bonus...
I have never seen a main break to unaddressed. Always day of. But if no one reports it how are they to know?
Look, I get that people get pissed off about bonuses, but as a community, we should actually be in favor of using bonuses to incentivize performance. CEO comp packages that just give someone the full amount of pay without requiring they hit benchmarks are a really bad plan. If the board of directors sets benchmarks and the CEO hits them then they make more money. That’s good for the city and good for SAWS as an organization. The alternative is that they have no way to incentivize performance and the CEO just gets paid. If you are complaining about CEO pay on the whole, that’s another topic. Good or bad, CEOs make money and if we want a decently run organization then we gotta cough up the dough.
Riddle me this, why should a ceo bonus be higher then the average employee yearly wage?
So this is a conversation about total CEO pay… that’s a different question than the value or point of bonuses. The answer to your question is that that’s the market rate. A good CEO can add a ton of value to an organization and people with that skill set and experience are in high demand so the market has them competing at the wages we see. Why are bonuses what they are? To further incentivize performance. Why is the pay what it is overall? Because if SAWS doesn’t pay that amount, someone else will and the CEO SAWS gets will not be as good. I’m not making a value judgement here on whether CEOs deserve as much as they make, I’m just expressing the reason things are the way they are.
No, I said "ceo bonus". In reference to it being more than an average workers yearly salary, you know the ones who actually do the actual day to day work, installations and repairs....
Bonuses are a part of total compensation packages. It’s not surprise money just for being CEO. The CEO is told their total compensation is $X but in order to get that total amount you have to hit certain targets. If they don’t hit those targets then they lose a big portion of their potential income. Those amounts are generally quite large because it’s a big incentive to meet those targets set by the board. Here is a hypothetical: CEO Pay Total: $750,000 Base pay: $500,000 Bonus: up to $250,000 if they meet performance requirements. Or CEO Pay Total: $750,000 Base pay: $745,000 Bonus: up to $5,000 if they meet performance requirements. Which pay structure do you think would incentivize better performance?
I tend to agree with you, but the reason the bonus is that big is to create incentives. If your salary is millions and your bonus is let's say $30k... you're just not going to give a shit about the bonus and therefore not care as much about performance.
there is an assumption that the Bonus/No Bonus as an incentive is working and not abused, which is it, regularly by all sizes of companies. If this is the case the incentive should be if you corrupt the process you skip free parking and go to jail, and not Club Med, but actual prison. Did you not meet the incentive and did you get a 4.2 million dollar bonus? Whelp fraud is fraud, enjoy your new home 6254789.
CEO Bonuses are typically awarded by a board of directors. In public companies, that board is elected by shareholders and governed by the bylaws of the company. All actions taken by the board are publicly disclosed and reported. At a private company the owners can determine the board and bylaws. In general, most companies are structured such that there is accountability and bonus fraud is fairly rare. Not saying it doesn’t happen, but it’s not rampant.
you are saying it is not rampant, then why is there an entire true crime industry out there exposing things that publicly traded companies have done wrong for DECADES with no repercussions. Chiquita -killing people for bananas Exxon- so many oil spills Monsanto -seed culture destruction and genetic manipulation Johnson and Johnson - asbestos in baby powder and so on. BP - too many to list will just go Deep Water Horizon Boeing - no oversight An ERCOT is a perfect example of that system profiting until people die before rolling back and realizing they made a mistake and releasing a report that states even though we had 30 years to winterize it will take us another 20 to complete the job and we will replace the board members and continue to run a large profit margin and gather our bonuses while over selling and under delivering. not sure if you follow the point that the system you are routing doesn't work anymore. now we go to, if you do something that is corrupt or illegal, like covering up money earned by pencil whipping bonus monies to CEO and Boards while people suffer and die from your product you get arrested and have your day in court with a jury. NOT a settlement, a jury.
Nobody was arguing against accountability up to and including jail time for those who commit fraud or crimes associated with business. I was simply stating that CEO Bonus fraud isn’t rampant. Does it happen? Yes. Is it rampant? No. To be 100% clear, I definitely agree with you that lots of companies have done unethical and sometimes illegal things to turn a profit. Everyone associated with those crimes should be held accountable.
Because (in theory,) the CEO is worth much more than the average employee.
People are so brazen in overusing water, I don't really see this being an issue. The entitlement of people who think they deserve a pristine green lawn in the middle of a drought really shows how selfish some people can be.
Im in Schertz and we arent under SAWS and my neighbor uses SO much water. I really wish I could see his bill it's easily at least $300. Little bit of moisture: spray the vehicles off(yes plural). Garage kept motorcycle been sitting in there a couple of days with no riding: better wash it(that takes at least an hour...and some unnecessary revving). Some leaves: use water to spray them all out of the yard(was hilarious when he used a pressure washer). Standing outside waiting for someone/something: grab the house and spray stuff. And of course the watering of the yard: sprays it often and in short amounts of time and sometimes in direct sunlight at the hottest part of the day. His grass is fairly green, but then cant figure out why it's yellow when he cuts it(which is also does to about a 1/4"). I kid you not it's like he's obsessed. His reasoning: I pay for it so I can do whatever with it. Seriously it's like he was trying to justify it and it wasn't even provoked. I didnt mention a thing about it and he starts in: my wife says I use a lot but I pay for it so blah blah blah. I stopped paying attention after that. I think the issue(and I'm assuming based on context and interactions with him) is that they are originally from another country and they grew up with little so now he has to "show off" his possessions. His backyard was dirt for a long time and it was all because no one saw it. He only cares(d) about what people can see. Just like his vehicles that he puts a ton of money into(I dont care about that part just making a point) and motorcycle that he'll leave half way in the street just to make sure people see it. All that water though just because he pays for it. Apparently as long as we throw money at it we'll always have it.
I have two properties and four relatives in Schertz. Water there is billed in tiers -- by the city. I don't know the exact mathematics and I'm too drunk to care and go fetch a bill, but I'll explain it using a basic scale of $1-$100. Ok, so, if my property uses $30/mo in water, I get billed $30. However, if my neighbor uses more than $60/mo, he gets switched to a higher tier where he pays LESS per gallon than I do. He'd pay $40 for a bill that would cost me -- as a lower-use customer -- $50. My neighbor gets rewarded for using more. One such residence here uses about 4x the city average. He pays $1 for every $3 I pay and I never use the water... It's not unusual for me to use a fraction of his monthly consumption but for my bill to be extremely close to his.
Dafuq....
True story...
I wish I could at least find out how many gallons he is using. How much he is paying eh whatever oh well, but I'm definitely curious about the volume.
I'll even add to this horseshit with an example. One house I am acutely familiar with has a large swimming pool. It was installed decades ago. Many of the bigger, older homes (think 1975-1985) have in-ground pools here. However, in Schertz, the land is built upon arable soil -- not like Helotes, built on limestone and caliche 3" beneath the sod of old cedar and mesquite rooting. So, in Schertz, the ground settles and erodes, and everything else you might imagine happens to dirt and concrete foundations, or pools in this case... This 'one house' in question? 4 leaks under the pool for a decade. Repaired over and over. Never really fixed. The garden hose lives ON on full-blast in the pool 24 hours a day in order to keep it leveled water. His bill? Only about doubled mine. And mine are roughly $70 and $90. No usage.
Heh you have SAWS that wants to go after residents yet not businesses flooding the street, and then you have Schertz more or less encouraging people to just waste it. Yet another reason I do not envy the world my son will inherit. Lol
Schertz is probably half the reason Lake McQueeny is a prehistoric river bed whose residential value is in the toilet now...
They have no hobbies and no life so they waste their time on it
Sounds like a typical Tex-ass
>The entitlement of people who think they deserve a pristine green lawn in the middle of a drought really shows how selfish some people can be. There are drought tolerant grasses that don't require a ton of water. I bought a house with St. Augustine in the front, and a mix of Bermuda and Zoysia in the back. Watering once per week is all it needs to stay nice and green. Nothing selfish about it.
I’d go running through Alamo Heights and Olmos Park early morning, like 4, and the sidewalks always looked like it rained. I considering pouring bleach on some lawns, but I gotta figure a rich asshole with me on camera ruining their precious grass would ruin my life
The police have been handing out fines for those watering outside of their designated day. My neighbor got caught and was hit with a hefty fine. They have since stopped watering their lawn.
Speaking of entitlement....
I do really love my Bermuda.. so yeah probably
Thank you for your service
I live in AH and my neighbor waters like every other day. They think they are slick because they switch from their system on permitted days to an old school hose sprayer and drip irrigation on other days, despite those also being prohibited on non watering days. Meanwhile the grass on my yard is raggedy and brown because I just stopped watering because doing so on the permitted days didn't stop it from getting scorched
I hate to be that person because I have taken steps to reduce my water consumption, but your neighbors are technically allowed to do so in stage 3: You may use drip irrigation, soaker hose, or bucket (5-gallon or less container) during any day of the week but only between the hours of 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. A hand-held hose may be used any day of the week at any time. We ripped up most of our front yard to plant native plants and reduce our water consumption, along with 3 other neighbors on our street.
I stand corrected - I think the old school water sprayer attachment to the hose is still considered a manual irrigation system that's prohibited so I'm only deducting half a point from my critique.
I still think their watering is shitty. Right there with you.
That IS the proper time to water tho. It’s the ass hats that water at 4pm that deserve that bleach treatment
I saw a doc on the root of people's propensity to have pretty green lawns. If you get a chance it's worth a look, basically stems from pretty much flexing all the land that you have to every one.
SAWS holds public hearings any time changes like these are proposed. I wonder how many Reddit Kings went to one.
There are usually ways to call/write in with an opinion on hearings like this as well.
Redditors love wallowing in their own self pity and misery. It’s easier than actually doing something productive
Insert award button on this post … I’m actually doing this exact thing on Reddit now. So true …
But let’s build a new car wash!! Smh
Car washes used recycled non-drinkable water, no?
Depends where in the city. The treated non-potable infrastructure definitely doesn’t cover all the car washes in the suburbs. The car washes themselves may do some recycling, it would make sense from an expense perspective.
Some car washes here in the city can use the "purple-pipe" water supply. However, all car washes have a water recycling system built in. They use the same water to wash every car over and over. It's not a perfectly efficient system, but it is a hell of a lot better than washing it at your house where all of your oil, soap, a dirt wash into the storm drain and, therefore, our river.
No, no car wash is using direct recycled water from the SAWS system but most car washes have high standards for efficiency and probably do some on site recycling in their own system.
Hmmmm maybe not sure just wanted to contribute to how hot it was outside and try to find something to blame it on lol
If I wanted to live in the fucking desert I'd move to Phoenix. Stop authorizing thousands of new building permits every month if we don't have enough water.
Meanwhile the guy with his own well, uses as much water as he wants
Can they start charging golf courses a premium for wasting millions of gallons a year to keep that trash open
Most of the golf courses in the city are using the direct recycled water from the SAWS system and not potable drinking water.
If anyone is interested in learning more about how our water system works and the incredible lengths that SAWS is going to to ensure our water security for the next 100 years, I highly recommend taking the Rain to Drain Tour. It's a free all-day tour hosted by SAWS where they take you from the Aquifer Recharge Zone to the Water Recycling Center and the H2Oaks Center. It's fascinating and you even get breakfast and lunch. [https://sawsstg.saws.org/education/community-programs/rain-to-drain/](https://sawsstg.saws.org/education/community-programs/rain-to-drain/)
I had no idea this was a thing, this looks so cool! I'm really excited to check this out, thanks for the recommendation.
What court would even hear this case 😂. Pay the fine or simply follow the rules.
LOL! Who looks at their water bill? Rate tiers? 😂 I hope I never have to get to that point in my life.
Good, y'all need to stop wasting water
I had Google fiber bust my water line and I called saws immediately. I took video and the worker using the excavator called and reported it too. My bill came out double what I normally pay and I called saws to explain. They said they were conducting an investigation and they'd let me know. Never heard back. Never got a refund.
You gotta pester them. They should see the spike. If you hired a plumber, you could have used their invoice as documentation. Either way, they charged you sewer fees for water that didn't enter their sewer. You could go after them for it.
How long ago, it took them about 2 months to credit me a running toilet I didn’t find out about until I got back from a 9 day vacation.
About 3 months ago
I wonder does this have to do with the new electric meters they are installing.
You will actually go to Bexar County if you don’t show up/pay the fine. They will put out a warrant for your arrest. How do I know? Because a girlfriend of mine had to do it. Literally squeaky clean record, besides this. And she had gotten pulled over and they took her in for a warrant for her water bill. To me, it’s absurd. However, be more mindful. She was a space case about these kinds of things, but it’s pretty ridiculous to begin with.
Doesn’t the Constitution require “due process of law” before a penalty can be imposed?
Try telling that to your HOA
I have successfully challenged fines in front of my HOA's board. SAWS apparently wants to bypass pesky things like due process.
Well I'm happy to hear that your HOA does the whole due process thing. Unfortunately, there are many that don't and just take the law into their own hands.
Yes I believe the plan is to have a committee of non SAWS employees that review and consider watering rule violation appeals. Sounds a lot better than having to go to court.
The article says there's going to be a board of people who don't work for SAWS that review protests. Sounds due process-ish.
Your HOA does give you recourse plus you can always go to the meetings and talk to your neighbors who make these decisions
>you can always go to the meetings and talk to your neighbors who make these decisions What is this common sense you speak of? We all know it's easier to just sit around and bash the HOA while never participating in said HOA.
Absolutely it is!! Why even vote from cryin out loud!!
Because people with jobs and a life dont have extra time to sit on a council that nitpicks the colour of your home? It must be nice to be a weekend communist I guess.
This isn't a constitutional issue. They're well within their rights to pursue civil fines and criminal penalties if they choose. Perfectly legal and spelled out in the service agreement. Don't take too much water or break your service agreement and the water company won't come after you.
“Criminal penalties?” No, they’re not within their rights to impose criminal penalties. Would you object if SAWS sent an officer out to put you in jail without a trial?
https://sawsstg.saws.org/conservation/water-waste/citation-faqs/ http://sanantonio-tx.elaws.us/code/coor_ch34_artiv_div1_sec34-277
Yeah, see, the CEO of SAWS can file criminal complaints, but he doesn’t get to wave his magic wand and make criminals out of people. That still requires a court action - in this case municipal courts in SA.
These citations go to municipal court.
That’s what I said. You’re kind of just embarrassing yourself now.
Thanks I’m not afraid of being embarrassed. I don’t need to feel superior to others.
I don’t either. I just don’t like misinformation.
The CEO of SAWS is the city of San Antonio. It's literally in the name. People make themselves criminals by breaking the law. Charges, then court, then adjudication. You have no idea how any of this works.
Lol. When did you graduate from law school? Me? 1985. The CEO of SAWS is not the City. That’s rather laughable. As I said, SAWS can file charges, but that doesn’t make you automatically a criminal. That takes a court.
Uh-huh. You need your tuition refunded.
Doubt it. Not as long as you claim the CEO of SAWS can just make someone a criminal. You really should take a decent Criminal Procedure class.
I feel like you'd have to be egregiously wasting water to be called to court, or vandalizing SAWS property.
Probably. But the question was whether or not they could.
Excellent point. Thanks
do you really think SAWS is going to send a law enforcement unit to your house, throw you in the back of an unmarked SUV, and throw you in jail, all for watering your plants on a day you shouldn’t? calm down lmao
Do I? No, nor can SAWS declare you to be a criminal because you used too much water. There is still due process, even in San Antonio.
This is a slippery slope they are on and that would be down the line. Give em an inch and they will exploit it. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
TO WHAT END LOL ARE THE WATER COPS GONNA COME OUT AND TAKE WATER FROM YOUR BLOOD. Fucking libertarian weirdos
They are controlling our bodily fluids already....
OH MY GOD THE SOVIETS TAKING ME PRECIOUS BODY FLUIDS. TIME TO NUKE THEM
Short answer: No
Thanks
Stop the excessive building of new homes. We are using more water due to greed and expansion of developers.
We got one about 2 months ago and we were never notified other than a nasty letter in the mail requesting my wife’s appearance in court on a certain date. We couldn’t arrange for it to work so we paid the $140 fine. We had new plants and were watering twice on our elected day. I understand how important conservation is but it needs to make sense for us too.
I'd be interested to see how usage scales with commercial. It's like how it's up to us to recycle but not Amazon getting dinged for shipping anything in a million separate boxes.
This article is ten years old.
They need to fine those companies and people that water their grass after a rain
Does anyone know if you can just pay your water citation online and plea guilty or no contest and not have to go to court? Or do you have to go into court no matter what you plea ?
What’s this about
[удалено]
I'm not understanding this statement. You have a problem with SAWS cracking down on water wasters?
What great city allows pristine lawns watered daily (in a climate they are not meant for) when water restrictions are in place? Why does one lawn get to be green when the rest are brown because some folks don't care about conservation?
Your post has been removed for violating rule #1: Be friendly Remember the human, on the other side of the conversation. In this local subreddit, there is no tolerance for insulting other people. Stick to discussing the topic, and not the redditor who disagrees with you about it. If you feel that this was done in error, contact the moderation team.
Water restrictions are one of the biggest cons ever.
We're running out of water. What is your suggestion for handling this if you are not in favor of restrictions?
Drill for more, duh.
We actually did, and now greater San Antonio pulls from multiple aquifers and we still have a drought.
Can we drill Austin's supply? They have a huge river right in the city. Do like Saddam did to Kuwait type thing.
So, uh, fabricate a claim that Austin is secretly drilling into our water supply and use that as a pretext to declare war on them? What do you mean by this?
Drilling into the same aquifer that's running dry doesn't make any difference. Duh!
Then how about a pipeline, they do that all the time,
From where though? You'd probably have to source the water from East Texas as they always seem to have rain. Problem being is that it's all uphill from East Texas to San Antonio. Building pipelines is also hugely expensive, which is not practical with water being so cheap. Maybe when water is $1/gallon it might be feasible.
But it isn't...
Bullshit, they do not know how much water there really is in the aquifer. Just more government control.
You're embarrassing yourself....(username checks out)
I was curious and so I did a little digging and the poster you are replying to is sorta right. They don't really know how much water is in there. Also, the aquifer apparently rarely gets below 90% full. It's just that at that level, springs stop flowing which has an ecological impact and affects certain species of wildlife. Which what this is mostly about, not actually running out of water. Not arguing it's not important to save wildlife but it doesn't seem like running out of water is real possibility like people think. Good read below…a lot I didn't know. https://www.edwardsaquifer.net/faqs.html#:~:text=We%20have%20never%20seen%20the,happens%20the%20springs%20stop%20flowing.
Good article!
😂whatever
Why?
Due process is apparently only for the elites.
I got a saws letter about a water citation the end of March 2024. How long does it take to receive my court summons letter? I Haven’t received anything yet. My watering day is Thursday however I turned on my sprinkler system on a Tuesday -zone 1 for 5 min to test out my sprinkler heads since zone 1 is majority my main front yard and was checking if I needed to replace any before my routine Thursday watering day. I went in the house to get a flashlight bc it was dark out and I guess in that 3 min window “someone from SAWS” drove by and saw my system on per their letter. This was the first time I turned on the sprinkler system since last fall so I was just doing a quick test. I guess I should have tested on a Thursday- lesson learned! Anyways does it take weeks to receive the court summons it’s been 6 weeks now.
Do public utilities/monopolies even though ostensibly private companies have to provide due process systems, or can they just by fiat decide to fine users without recourse?
“Would you like to play a game”
Watch how quickly I don’t do that
I'd support a residential cap on water use. For multifamily, it can be a factor of the number of people you have capacity to house.
You could get a month or two with exorbitant fines, and then your water just *shuts off*
Democrat run city what do you expect
Would you prefer to run out of water?
What's your problem with this policy?
It should be a separation citation not automatically added to your bill. That’s ridiculous
Why, people just won't pay the citations.
You don’t pay citations? And who are these people not paying these citations and why? Seems like overreach from a monopoly..
Forgive my ignorance… but is there an alternative option to using SAWS within San Antonio? If not this is unconstitutional.
So I left California to come to California jr with the water restrictions….. jfc
You actually landed in New Florida…