The town of Springhill frequently must declare a water emergency, making it temporarily unlawful to use water for suc...

Naz on July 16, 2015

Conclusion: Springhill discourages water conservation.

Why? Each household pays a modest monthly flat fee for any amount of water below a certain usage threshold, and a substantial per-liter rate only after the threshold is reached.

So the reasoning here is that Springhill residents may not necessarily have any incentive to conserve since they've already paid a flat fee for a certain amount of water. So the key here is to figure out what this threshold is.

If the threshold is low, then residents may have incentive to conserve because they could easily go over the threshold and have to pay large sums. But, if the threshold is high, then there's no incentive to conserve, since you've already technically paid for a certain amount of water.

Think of it this way, if you normally use 2,000 liters of water a month and your initial base payment was for up to the threshold of 1,800 liters, then you would probably conserve a little since you would have to pay a lot more once you hit 1,800. But, if the threshold was up to 4,000 liters, then you wouldn't be as careful with your water usage and you may even use more water since you've already paid for it.

This is exactly what answer choice (C) points out. If the threshold is kept at a high enough level to exceed the water requirements of most households, then these households have no incentive to conserve, and in fact may use more water since they've paid for it. Thus, answer choice (C) strengthens the conclusion that Springhill discourages the conservation of water.

Hope that clears things up! Please let us know if you have any other questions.