whatwatercosts.org
Here's what's new since our August update.
We now cover 4,380 utilities
In August we had rates for about 625 utilities. Today we have 4,380, serving roughly 275 million people across all 50 states, DC, and several territories.
We're still working toward our goal of covering every utility that serves more than 10,000 people.
Find your rates by city, county, or ZIP code
Most people don't know the name of their water utility, but they do know where they live. So we've made that the easiest way in:
- ZIP code search. Type your ZIP code into the search box to find the utilities that serve it.
- City and county pages. Every city and county now has its own page listing the utilities that serve it and what they charge.
- Areas served. Each utility page now lists the cities it serves, with links to those city pages.
A better utility page
We redesigned the utility pages. Each one is now split into short sections, each answering a common question: how much water costs, how that compares with nearby utilities, whether it's affordable for local households, and where the data came from.
Each page now compares a utility with the ones closest to it on the map. Before, it compared the utility with the cheapest ones in the same state, which could be hundreds of miles away.
A faster site
The home page loads much faster now. The map uses the same color scale no matter how you filter it, so a color always means the same price range.
We're now fiscally sponsored by the Policy Simulation Library Foundation
We're excited to share that whatwatercosts.org is now fiscally sponsored by the Policy Simulation Library Foundation. PSL supports open-source projects that help people understand public policy, and we're glad to join them.
Fiscal sponsorship means we can accept grants and tax-deductible donations. It will help us move faster: adding more utilities, keeping rates up to date, and publishing the full dataset for anyone to use.
Thanks for following along.
-MT