Hul Tytus wrote, on Sun, 06 Jul 2014 21:45:32 +0000:

Take your water from the same place San Jose does/did,
at a lower price.

The *only* legal water we can get is from the San Jose Water
Company, either at a SJWC hydrant, or by a trucking firm who
gets their water at a SJWC hydrant. There is no other (known)
way (at this point).

The trucking firm charges $225 to $250 for 3,800 gallons, or
about six cents (give or take) a gallon.

The price of the water directly from SJWC is almost nothing
(literally about 1/3 of a cent per gallon for just the water),
although a 3" meter adds 176.98/month, which, for a day is
about six bucks. But we'd still have to truck it somehow.

Point is, the water isn't what costs money.
It's the transportation.
I didn't know that when I first asked, but, now, the real
issue is simply how to get a sizeable amount of water up
a hill from a fire hydrant.

I /think/ we have a host of potential solutions:
1. Pay the 6 cents a gallon and be done with it,
2. DIY for much less but it's a lot of work.

We've lined up a spare 685 gallon water tank, and a
couple of light pickups, and we're sure we can rent
a 2-1/2 ton pickup (is that the carrying capacity?)
so, we think we're well on our way, thanks to your help.

Also, we've lined up the fire department to give us a
talk about defensible space, and we're working on getting
an agreement with the lowest-cost bulk water delivery
company in the area.

In addition, I've now "inspected" a half dozen residential
water setups, so we can help the neighbors who don't have
guys like you guys backing them up!

Thanks for all your help!