For years, Manteca had water conservation rules in place but most households had no real financial incentive to save water if the amount of water they used monthly stayed in the lower tier.
That lower tier easily accommodated most households given the typical Manteca household uses 16 hundred cubic feet (HCF) of water a month. A HCF unit is the equivalent of 748 gallons.
That ended in 2025 when the current water rate structure was adopted.
And it’s not that the city had any choice.
State water agencies — tasked with stretching out available water supplies need for cities, farming and the environment as well as to stop groundwater over drafting — issued rules that irrigation districts and domestic water systems had to follow whether they are operated by cities, for-profit companies, or homeowner associations.
The rules dealt with volumetric pricing.
In a nutshell, every agency that delivers water and is regulated by the state has to:
*Charge for volumetric water use and not simply have a base rate.
*Eliminate price breaks when users pay less for water when they don’t cross certain thresholds. That effectively makes all water on a HCF basis cost the same which ups the price and is mo...