No more drought, but use less water.
Strong Sierra snowpack, but you must conserve.
Ample rain, but still, we need you to save resources.
“We’ve been successful in conservation to the point where our sales are declining, and we need to make that up somehow,” says the Metropolitan Water Department (MWD) board chair Adan Ortega.
The MWD chair says the quiet part out loud: conserve, conserve, conserve, and your rates will still go up, up, up. They will get theirs.
On April 9, 2024, the MWD board of Southern California approved a $2.4 B budget and increased water rates by 8.5 percent. Also, the board doubled the property tax assessment for water users, the first increase in 30 years, resulting in doubling of water fees for homes in Ventura and Los Angeles counties.
Higher water bills and shifting the water collections onto property taxes raises the cost of living, the cost of owning a home and overall cost of housing.
We are not rewarded for years of conserving water, but punished.