Flint Water Coin

Estimated Cost of Flint Repairs:

$7,500 per house to change water lines.
City funded up to $5000 per home
$2500 per home needed
http://www.mlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/10/why_flints_lead_pipe_replaceme.html

$121,860,000 short on repairs, so this is estimated funds needed.

Water Consumption Rates

per capita water use: 80-100 gal/day
Source: USGS
https://water.usgs.gov/edu/qa-home-percapita.html

Population of Flint:

97,386 (and falling)
Source: google top suggested chart, “Sources including US Census Bureau”, August 24, 2017.

48,744 households (2000 census)

Cost of Water

High Price of Water Nationally: $326/month is high for a family of four using 100 gallons per person per day. (Atlanta)
$326 / 4people / 100gal / 30.5 days = $0.02672131148 / gallon
http://www.circleofblue.org/2015/world/price-of-water-2015-up-6-percent-in-30-major-u-s-cities-41-percent-rise-since-2010/

A low cost per gallon (to incentivize early buyers) could be as low as $55 (Memphis)
http://www.circleofblue.org/2015/world/price-of-water-2015-up-6-percent-in-30-major-u-s-cities-41-percent-rise-since-2010/

If we split the difference, aim to pre-sell Flint water tokens at $190.5 (per family of four using 100 gal/day)
This gives us 190 / 4 / 100 / 30.5 = $0.01557377049/gallon

Therefore

At 100/gallons per day, Flint needs 9,738,300 gal/day, while paying as much as $260,220 per day.

Traditional Loan Structure

This repair shortage equal to ~468.3 days of water service fees.
If the lenders got 1/10 of the revenue, it would take 12.8 years to be made whole, much longer if interest were applied.

Alternative, Token Mechanic

If “Flint Water Token” represents a pre-purchase of 1 gallon of water.

Gallons of water could be pre-sold at a moderate modern cost of water.

If we split the difference between high and low water costs, aim to pre-sell Flint water tokens at $190.5 (per family of four using 100 gal/day, similar to the cost of water in Boston)
This gives us 190 / 4 / 100 / 30.5 = $0.01557377049/gallon
That mints $121860000 needed / $0.01557377049/gallon = ~7,824,694,737 tokens

If water prices were comparable with top prices in the country (Seattle, Atlanta), the tokens would be worth $0.02672131148, a potentially 165% return in just over a year. (I can’t tell the future, I’m looking for a way to get water to people).

Funders could be refunded if it was unsuccessful, kickstarter style.

Price Discovery

While holders of the tokens may hope to resell at hugely inflated prices, since the City would still be selling water, the city’s set price would serve as the max-price line, essentially requiring that token holders sell under that price to be competitive in the market.

This would require the initial token price be low enough that it attracts investors, but high enough that it pays for the water infrastructure. To help find this middle-price, an auction mechanic could be used.

First, the city could commit to an initial water price, and only be allowed to adjust that price within certain parameters (at least as long as the tokens are outstanding).

With those price commitments known, there could be a sort of reverse dutch auction, where future gallons of water could initially be sold at over that price, and the price could gradually be lowered, until the target repair cost had been met. (~$121MM).

It’s possible the city would not want to issue tokens below a certain price, say, a tenth of the eventual price of the water, and so would stop the sale at this point.

At this point that the sale was stopped early, the fees could either be refunded to the participants, or maybe the participants could optionally buy the tokens unconditionally.

If the City really had a lower price they were willing to sell at, they might just have the auction approach that price, and not end the sale at all. In this kind of sale, the City might also have the ability to adjust these water-future prices on the fly, so at any time, the minimum sale price for water tokens might go up.

These tokens would probably have some kind of vesting schedule, like they could only be used on homes upgraded with FlintWaterToken funds. Once tokens were vested, and there was a way to spend them, the price of the tokens would have to approach the price of The City’s water, and the city at this point could choose to transition to a tokenized water pricing model, allowing them to sell water futures to help subsidize immediate costs.

Legal Requirements

Getting the City of Flint water district willing to accept these tokens in exchange for clean water service in the future at one gallon per token, and a crowd of people willing to bet some of their savings on people being thirsty in the future.

Depending on the token design, The City would need to be varying degrees of involved.

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