1990年，埃尔帕索水务公共服务委员会致力于一项积极的保护计划，旨在在十年内将人均用水量减少20%。在最终制定旨在实现这一目标的综合保护计划时，对各种措施进行了评估。这些措施包括强制浇水计划、客户教育、管道规范修订、景观条例、定价和其他一些非价格项目。本文的目的是讨论委员会保护计划的组成要素、它们是如何选择的，以及该计划实施前两年取得的成果。特别令人感兴趣的是董事会使用的定价方法。 这种方法的目的是向高峰需求量大的客户收费，收费率表明提供所需服务的成本。这是通过所谓的“过度使用”率方法实现的。本文将讨论这一比率方法，并检查它与其他措施一起，对埃尔帕索减少用水的贡献程度，以及预期的贡献程度。

In 1990 the El Paso Water Utilities Public Service Board committed to an aggressive conservation program aimed at reducing per capita water usage by 20% within a ten-year period. A variety of measures were evaluated in ultimately developing a comprehensive conservation program designed to achieve this goal. These measures include mandatory watering schedules, customer education, plumbing code revisions, landscape ordinances, pricing and a number of other non-price programs. The purpose of this paper will be to discuss the elements comprising the Board's conservation program, how they were selected, and the results achieved in the first two years the program has been in place. Of particular interest is the pricing approach used by the Board. This approach is designed to charge those customers with high peak demands at rates indicative of the cost of providing the service demanded. This is done through what is referred to as an "excess-use" rate approach. The paper will discuss this rate approach and examine the degree to which it, along with other measures, has and is expected to contribute to water use reductions in El Paso.