San Jose residential water rates increase - pay nearly $10 more per month
Attention to friends living in San Jose, your water bill may increase.
A reader provided the newspaper with an email from San Jose Water. It said that the wholesale water supplier for Santa Clara County, Valley Water, will raise wholesale water rates starting July 1, and this cost will be passed on to customers including those in San Jose.
Based on the standard in the email, if your home has a 3/4-inch meter and uses 10 CCF (hundred cubic feet) per month, your monthly water bill will increase by about $9.81.
How is this $9-plus derived? Mainly two parts. One part is the increase in Valley Water's wholesale water rate, about $4.95. The other part is charged by San Jose Water itself, related to Smart Meter and M-WRAM, $4.86.
San Jose Water specifically stated in the notice that the $4.95 increase from Valley Water is a pass-through charge paid directly to Valley Water. San Jose Water does not mark it up or make a profit from it.
Briefly explain the relationship between the two agencies. Valley Water manages the entire water supply for Santa Clara County and charges wholesale fees to retail water providers like San Jose Water. San Jose Water is responsible for delivering water to homes and businesses. The two are also regulated differently.
San Jose Water said that after Valley Water's rate increase on July 1, they have no authority to control or reduce this cost, so they can only pass it on to consumers. In addition to the wholesale rate increase, San Jose Water is also charging fees related to smart meter deployment this time.
From July 1 to June 30, 2027, residential customers using a 3/4-inch meter and 10 CCF per month will see an additional $4.86 on their monthly bill. Of that, $1.84 is for Smart Meter related fees, and $3.02 is an M-WRAM surcharge. The latter is mainly used to adjust revenue differences under the tiered water rate structure.
The reader who provided the email said they had not paid much attention to water rate adjustments before, and only noticed after seeing the bill notification that the increase was not just Valley Water's wholesale water rate, but also other fees like Smart Meter. So they wanted to remind other Bay Area residents to pay more attention to recent changes in water bills.
Some residents said that less than $10 more per month doesn't seem like much. But water is a fixed living expense; if it goes up along with electricity, natural gas, insurance, home maintenance, etc., household expenses will still increase considerably over time.
Regarding the Smart Meter fee, San Jose Water said smart meters allow users to more easily understand their water usage.
So for San Jose residents, this adjustment means — all else being equal, an average residential customer meeting the usage standard in the notice will pay approximately $9.81 more per month starting in July.
