No matter where you live in the Tucson area, water comes out of the faucet the same way, and usually from the same place.
But the cost of that water varies widely depending on where you live, even though almost everyone in the Tucson area is using roughly the same mix of groundwater and water from the Central Arizona Project canal.
If you live in the Flowing Wells Irrigation District, you'll pay the least. Folks in Oro Valley pay the most.
It all depends on who's providing that water.
"Each jurisdiction, whether it's a municipality or a private water company, has to set its prices based on the cost to deliver water to its customers," says Tom Carr, the Arizona Department of Water Resources' assistant director for statewide planning.
According to the department, the average person in the Tucson Active Management Area uses 103 gallons of water every day. The Active Management Area is a 3,866-square-mile section of Southern Arizona that includes the city of Tucson and surrounding areas.
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Over 30 days, the average home, which has 2.52 people in it, uses 7,756 gallons.
Given the varying rates, though, that average usage translates to a monthly water bill — not including sewer service — of $17.75 to $33.82.
The cheapest water goes to customers of the Flowing Wells Irrigation District. Their average bill, based on areawide average usage, is $17.75 per month.
In existence since 1922, the Flowing Wells Irrigation District serves about 3,500 households in a small area on the Northwest Side.
Having such a small customer base and service area is partly why the district keeps costs down, superintendent Dave Crockett says.
"We're so much smaller than other water companies, and we have low overhead," Crockett said. "It's always been our goal to keep our rates low."
Another way companies try to keep their bills low is through usage tiers, Carr says. That means people who use more, pay more.
"Many providers like to have tiers so the basic needs of a home are available at a reasonable price, then you pay at a higher rate for higher usage," Carr said.
Most local water companies charge a flat rate per 1,000 gallons for at least the first 10,000 gallons used each month. The rate then goes up for each 1,000 gallons beyond that first-tier threshold.
Tucson Water's lowest tier goes up to 12,000 gallons, which conservation manager Fernando Molina says covers a high percentage of its customers. The average Tucson Water customer uses 10,000 gallons per month, meaning most households pay for their water at the lowest rate.
"Our rate structure is designed so that the average user in our service area falls into the first usage block," said Molina, whose customers' average bills — based on the the Arizona Department of Water Resources' average monthly usage for the area — are $18.40.
Oro Valley's first tier only covers the initial 7,000 gallons of use. The town reduced its first-tier threshold last year from 10,000 to 7,000 to encourage conservation, utility administrator Shirley Seng said.
As a result, Oro Valley customers pay more than anyone else in the Tucson area — $33.82 per month, based on the water resources department's average usage rate.
Seng said only about 44 percent of Oro Valley customers use fewer than 7,000 gallons a month, though she expects that number to go down.
"We've noticed that the average usage is dropping," she said.
Oro Valley's bills are higher than other local companies, Seng noted, because Oro Valley charges customers a groundwater preservation fee of 40 cents per 1,000 gallons.
It's a fee no other area company charges, but Seng says Oro Valley must assess it to pay for the debt service on the town's reclaimed water system and eventually to bring CAP water to the town.
"We do not have any means of getting that here today," Seng said of CAP water.
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