It is likely that consumers in the southwest will also face higher prices for water. Because in order for the water to end up clear and fresh in the glass, it has to be treated. This requires electricity - and it's getting more and more expensive.
Pforzheim (dpa / lsw) - Four million people who get their water in whole or in part from Lake Constance may have to pay more for the precious liquid in the future. The Zweckverband Bodensee-Wasserversorgung with its 183 member municipalities and associations approved the management's proposal on Tuesday in Pforzheim to increase the price for a cubic meter of water by more than 20 percent to 81.5 cents.
According to a spokeswoman for the association, the reason for this highest increase in the history of the company, which was founded in 1954, is the increasing electricity costs for treating the water. "The electricity costs for this correspond to those of an entire municipality like Überlingen in one year." Increases in personnel costs are also taken into account in the surcharge, said the spokeswoman. Whether and to what extent the higher prices are passed on to consumers depends on many factors and is decided locally. While some communities depend 100 percent on Lake Constance water, others also use their own wells, groundwater and rivers, as the spokeswoman explained.
According to the State Statistical Office, a family of four spent 368 euros on drinking water in 2012, in 2017 it was 408 and in 2022 it was 452 euros. During this time, water consumption also increased: in 2013, one family managed with 170 cubic meters, in 2016 it was 174 cubic meters and three years later 182 cubic meters. The last requirement per person was 125 liters per day.
Above all, the operation of the pumps, which pump more than 130 million cubic meters of water to the waterworks on the 310-meter Sipplinger Berg every year, requires a lot of energy. In order to distribute around 130 million cubic meters of drinking water from Germany's largest drinking water reservoir in Baden-Württemberg, Lake Constance water supply operates a pipeline network more than 1700 kilometers long from Lake Constance to the Odenwald.
Fears that the lake could be pumped empty are completely unfounded, the spokeswoman said. The water is taken from a depth of 60 meters. Up to 670,000 cubic meters of water are siphoned off every day, compared to a water volume of 48 billion cubic meters.
