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Drinking water costs spiked faster than inflation, grocery prices and median household income, researchers at nonprofit Food & Water Watch outlined in a first-of-its-kind report released Tuesday.

The average community water system increased household drinking water prices by 62 percent between 2015 and 2025 — with costs in Louisiana, Maryland and New Hampshire having particularly steep rises, according to the 17-page report. California also stood out in the data when it comes to seeing expensive water bills.

Kristin Dobbin, an assistant professor of Cooperative Extension at the University of California, Berkeley, who was not involved in the report, called the analysis “extremely important.”

The finances behind drinking water are “not something we’ve had a big picture view on across the country before,” Dobbin told Inside Climate News on Monday, noting that broad trends are much easier to review for national electricity rates.

“We need to situate the water conversation within these broader concerns about affordability,” she said. “Certainly, it’s striking that they found just how quickly water costs have risen in the decade.”

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Food & Water Watch gathered and analyzed 2025 water billing data for the nation’s 500 largest community water systems, which serve more than 155 million people, or 45 percent of the country. The nonprofit compared that data to household water bills from 2015.

The new report — “Surging Water Costs amid the US Affordability Crisis” — notes that last year, the average U.S. water system charged households $531 a year for 60,000 gallons of water, an estimate of annual average water use per household.

Eleven years ago, water systems typically charged about $336 a year per household, which is about $457 in 2025 dollars when adjusted for inflation.

While water bills vary greatly nationwide, a corporate water system in San Jose, California, had the highest price for water in the report, charging $1,416 annually in........

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