Which Tucson household uses the most water?
There’s no way to say.
Under Arizona law, information that appears on utility bills is not public record.
Not only is disclosing this information prohibited, so is asking for it without the express permission of the customer.
Arizona Revised Statutes, Title 44, Article 20, lays out the rules.
It prohibits efforts to “knowingly procure, attempt to procure, solicit or conspire with another to procure a public utility record, a telephone record or communication service record of any resident of this state without the authorization of the customer to whom the record pertains or by fraudulent, deceptive or false means.”
Water utilities in Tucson and Phoenix have interpreted that to mean they cannot disclose household-level data, even if they withhold customer names.
Tucson Water officials said they felt honor-bound to prevent the release of any information that could be used to identify top water users.
They pointed to a December 2012 story in the San Antonio Express-News that identified former Wildcat basketball player Sean Elliott as San Antonio’s second-highest water user.
“As people who value water conversation efforts in our community, my wife and I are absolutely mortified to be on this list,” Elliott wrote in an email to the Express-News. “We do abide by any and all watering restrictions and suspect a possible irrigation leak on our property that we are resolving. In any case, we obviously have to do better. Much, much better.”
Stories of this kind have identified leaks and spread an ethic of conservation among a group that utility officials say is hardest to nudge toward conservation — the wealthy.
The information is public in many states, from Texas to Wisconsin.
California’s public records law protects the billing information of most residential customers, but it makes an exception for officials overseeing water agencies.
A recent review of those data by the Center for Investigative Reporting found that some officials used more than 1 million gallons in 2013.
Nearly half of the officials who supervise the state’s biggest water agencies used more water than the typical California household, their analysis found.
