That&#x27;s a good point - I also completely excluded sewer prices, which are actually considerably higher than water prices.<p>Warning: no data, just intuition, in the rest of this comment.<p>I&#x27;m a bit confused by that, actually, since California is in a significant drought and there is a lot of pressure to get people to cut back on washing their cars and watering their lawns. I would imagine that, in a residential setting, roughly 100% of water consumed for purposes besides the external use that we&#x27;re trying to reduce then goes into the sewer.<p>So why don&#x27;t we just increase water prices and cut sewer prices equivalently? You&#x27;d expect the average consumer&#x27;s bill to go up only in proportion with the amount of externally used water that they &quot;waste&quot;. One potential complication might be for houses with septic tanks, but those are probably fairly uncommon in the area served by SFPUC. Perhaps, as a utility, they&#x27;re constrained to charge relative to their actual cost in those areas.<p>Edit: retric - thanks, that makes sense. I&#x27;m a renter here, so I don&#x27;t pay a water bill (except indirectly via rent).