No it is not. The water districts are extremely powerful, and the biggest usage districts are held by agricultural interests. They have staggered elections to stop water board takeovers and ensure that they can shift water costs from usage based to per-meter fees. Captive homeowners in agriculture controlled water districts can end up with $200 a month water bills for a family of four.

Source: Lived in a water district for 7 years with some of the cheapest water in the state (sub $3 a unit) yet a water bill for a family of four with fake grass and small yard of around $180 a month. If we used ZERO water, the bill would have been about $120 in flat fees. We were subsidizing the massive avocado groves and other major agricultural producers in the water district. They brushed off our complaints and the fact that we pointed to neighboring cities with $40 water bills.

Was it $180 per month or $180 per quarter?

Per month. Very small yard. Fake grass in the back.

Just watched a documentary on Netflix about water in California which stated that 80 pct of the water goes subsidized to agriculture which is like 2 percent of the economy. They got into this family, the Resnicks of POM Wonderful and all the shady moves they made to control public water privately which caused this wake of issues including what you wrote about where families either had no water, tainted water or it was crazy expensive. California even bought back it's own water it invested to store in Kern county at a multiple. Insane stuff.

California has a very strange water system. It’s not really privatized, only ~5% of California’s water is provided by private parties last I checked. Californian water rights promise significantly more water than the state actually has (which will cause some problems).

The water districts and utilities do most of the price setting, as I understand it. The water districts are largely controlled by farming interests who do not want pricy water.

This info may be out of date, since I work in a very different water market (East Africa), so if someone knows better please correct me.

Definitely not and it would probably put most agriculture in California out of business. Farmers can't compete with cities on price.

https://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21647994-why-go...

Yep. No more California beef too. Water there is too expensive and there's no free-market in agriculture there.