On Sat, 20 Jan 2007 12:39:09 -0500, Jeff Wisnia
wrote:

Terry wrote:
My bill was 11$. It said my usage was 2 units. I know that is not
gallons.


Here in Winchester, Taxachusetts, a unit is a hundred cubic feet (ccf),
costing us us around $3.25/ccf at our household usage level of about 10
ccf/month. (The rate escalates from $1.22/ccf to $4.94/ccf as usage
increases from 0 to 45 plus ccf per quarterly billing period.)

But, we also pay an egregious "sewer charge" based on water consumption
which ends up coming out to be about 10% MORE than what we pay for the
water.

That's the result of our town being one of forty communities whose
sewage had flowed into Boston Harbor for a couple of hundred years. When
the gummint began cleaning up the harbor and installing new sewage
treatment/disposal systems about 15 years ago, they started whacking
those forty towns real good, and I presume that'll probably never stop
in my lifetime.

Our town won't even allow you to install a second water meter for
irrigation use only and waive the sewer charge on it. So, I don't treat
our lawns to as much water as they really need, 'cause I get just too
annoyed when the water bill arrives.G

The only way to beat that sewage charge is to drill a well.

Water catchment and a cistern. In Massachussets, you get easily
enough rainfall to not need a well.