from the Los Angeles Times

If you’ve noticed your water bills getting a lot more expensive, you’re not alone.

In a new nationwide survey of 500 large drinking water utilities, researchers found that average water bills have gone up 1.6 times as fast as inflation, and Californians are paying some of the highest bills.

The report by Food & Water Watch, a nonprofit advocacy group, shows that four water utilities in California rank among the top 10 most expensive in the United States. The private utility San Jose Water Co. was No. 1, while others included Escondido, Santa Barbara and Marin Municipal Water District.

The researchers also found that more than half of the 25 most expensive water systems they looked at are in California. They include those in San José (11), San Francisco (14), Sacramento (15) and Oceanside (19), which the group said charged bills totaling more than $1,100 last year for typical indoor water usage for a household of three.

These amounts are, of course, in $US. No, it’s not because of private enterprise profiteering: the majority of drinking water systems in California are publicly or government-owned. California has 1,166 publicly owned community water systems out of a total of 2,895 — while there are more individual private water systems (1,729), these private systems are mostly very small and serve rural areas or mobile home parks. In terms of the actual population served, the vast majority of Californians get their water from large, government-owned public utilities.

However, a big difference is that most of California is a low rainfall zone — the average annual rainfall in Los Angeles for example is 362 mm (14.25 inches) whereas in Kapiti it’s about 1,200 mm. So Kapiti gets plenty of water, there’s just not enough storage for the dry summer months, a problem that would have been solved if Mayor Rowan + Dougherty had built a reservoir, instead of the temporary expedient of their meters. —Eds