What Makes My Water Bill So High?

We get this question a lot: “My friend in Temecula (or San Diego, or any other urban area) has a water bill that is lower than mine.   Why are RMWD’s fixed water fees higher than theirs?”  It is a valid question for which there is no simple answer.  Here are some of the reasons our rate structure is different than other areas:

We Are A Large Rural District

RMWD is over 80 square miles with fewer than 7800 service connections.   Taken another way, we have fewer than 100 accounts per square mile. Our neighbor to the North, Rancho Water is about 156 square miles with over 40,000 accounts, or 256 per square mile.  Every place where we serve water we need to have pipelines, tanks, valves, pump stations, etc. in order to get the water to you.   The cost to maintain those assets are similar between the two agencies, but Rancho Water can split their costs among 2.5 times as many customers as we can.