Clean Water: The New Hot Commodity

When you think about hot commodities right now, you probably don’t think of water. Yet the price of water in some parts of the world is rising… sometimes very quickly. Take California, for example.

Mark Swatek is CEO of Southwest Water Co., a water utility that serves California and the Southwestern U.S. You may accuse him of talking his book when he says: “One of the fastest growing commodity prices is the price of metropolitan water [in Southern California].”

It may be an exaggeration, but not by much. Since 2007, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has increased its water rates from $574 an acre-foot to $781 an acre-foot — a 36% increase. (An acre-foot is the amount of water needed to flood a plain of one acre to a depth of one foot — or about 326,000 gallons.) (more)