agenda city of watsonville city council/redevelopment agency meeting

D. Metering with Commodity Rates for all new Connections and Retrofit of Existing Connections
The City is fully metered for all customer sectors, including separate meters for single-family and multifamily
residential, commercial, large landscapes, and all institutional/governmental facilities. Metering
is an effective conservation measure that directly associates cost with the amount of water used. It also
provides the means for the City to identify and monitor high use customers.
The City will continue to install and read meters on all new services. To help ensure that the water is
metered correctly, the City has a proactive meter calibration and replacement program. Small meters (1
inch or less) are replaced at 20 year intervals. Large meters (1½ inch and greater) are replaced at 15
year intervals. Meter installation costs are part of new service connection fees.
The City Utility Code requires irrigation water meters for all large landscape customers (greater than
5,000 square feet), to separate outside from interior water use, and easily allow recycled water
conversions. During water shortages, this will help develop equitable rationing allocations for nonresidential
customers with both interior and landscape uses.
The City has an inclining multi-block rate structure, with four tiers. See DMM K.
Periodic reviews of customer water use are done to evaluate the effectiveness of this measure,
comparing current water use per capita with historic data. Studies have shown that metered accounts
may result in a 20% reduction in demand, compared to non-metered accounts.
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