If you live in an area where your basin’s consumption is sustainable, then the only reason to conserve is to reduce costs related to pumping and treatment.
If you live in an area where your basin’s consumption is not sustainable, then you must conserve so as to have water further into the future, and to avoid massive economic and environmental costs related to inter-basin diversion.
For folks who live where water consumption is sustainable, but adjacent to areas where water consmption is not sustainable, you may find that diversions out of your area will have negative impacts on you that result in your having to conserve due to higher water costs from diversion (you pay more for water gbecause there is less available because out-of-basin uses have diverted it), due to having to further develop your own infrastructure (you have to send intake pipes further out into the lake and you have to dredge the shipping channels because fo lower water levels due to out-of-basin diversions), and also to avoid further environmental degradation. If you are interested in this sort of issue, check out the Draft Annex the Council of Great Lakes Governors are finalizing, that tries to ensure sustanable water use in an area of growing population, and that will be facing tremendous pressure to permit out of basin diversions to the mid-west.
It’s a complex issue because of all the factors. My experience with water conservation is that it lowers the quality of life. Several years ago everyone here was asked to conserve water and people actually did it. Consumption went down significantly. However, since the water company wasn’t selling as much product, they raised the prices to make up the difference. So conserving water made prices go up and consumers got absolutely no financial break for using less water. Then our local government got into the act and decided that since we now had more available water, they could justify rezoning neighborhoods from single family residences to multiple family apartment houses. So what were once nice, older neighborhoods suddenly became blocks of apartments. Bleh! Why should I conserve water when the result is that my neighborhood goes from shady tree filled yards to crappy apartment buildings that fill every inch of the lot?
No doubt about it. You have to take into account the Law of the Conservation of Cupidity on the part of developers and politicians who are either in the pocket of developers are are such themselves.
If your community is like mine I’ll bet only about 25-30% of registered voters actually vote in local elections.