A Bolinas house can go all year without using a drop of water and still owe the Bolinas Community Public Utility District $2,186.02. That's the annual water service charge for each connection in fiscal year 2026/27, which runs July 1 through June 30. It shows up on the Marin County property tax bill, separate from the quarterly charge for water used. In BCPUD's own words, every connection pays "the same flat amount regardless of consumption."
That flat charge has carried almost all of Bolinas water costs for years. This fiscal year the district started moving some of that weight onto the meter. If you're comparing West Marin towns, the result is a little unexpected. In Bolinas, a house's water cost now depends less on whether anyone lives there full time and more on how much land around it gets watered in the dry months.
A flat fee that did nearly all the work
The district laid out the imbalance in an April 13, 2026 Finance Committee memo on metered rates. In FY 2024/25, the annual service charge brought in about $1.07 million. Metered water sales brought in about $60,000, roughly 5% of water revenue. Metered rates hadn't moved in more than sixteen years.
That arrangement had an odd side effect. The memo says this was shown at an April 2025 special meeting:
"when the annual service charge is factored in, a minimal-use Tier 1 customer was effectively paying nearly five times more per cubic foot than a Tier 7 heavy user."
The memo also gives a detail that makes this concrete. Under the old schedule, a customer using 2,700 cubic feet a quarter paid $17.51 a month in metered charges, against a $171 monthly share of the annual service charge. The water you used was a rounding error. The bill was really the price of keeping a connection.
The new tiers, worked through four households
On June 17, 2026, the board adopted a new five-tier metered schedule to replace the seven tiers set in 2009. The tiers are set per quarter, and each rate applies only to the water that falls inside its band. The BCPUD water rates page lists them:
- 100 to 1,000 cubic feet at $3.00 per 100 cubic feet
- 1,001 to 2,700 at $4.00
- 2,701 to 4,000 at $10.00
- 4,001 to 6,000 at $15.00
- Over 6,000 at $25.00
Two of those breakpoints come from local benchmarks. The 1,000 cubic foot line sits almost exactly at the median quarterly use across the district's active accounts. The 2,700 line is the standard allocation under BCPUD's Limited Water Use Permit program.
Here is what four households would pay under the FY 2026/27 rates if every quarter of the year looked the same. The arithmetic is ours, using the published tiers and the $2,186.02 annual charge.
| Quarterly use | Metered charge per quarter | Metered per year | Water total with annual charge | Effective cost per 100 cubic feet |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1,000 cf, about the median | $30 | $120 | $2,306.02 | about $57.65 |
| 2,700 cf, the LWUP line | $98 | $392 | $2,578.02 | about $23.87 |
| 4,000 cf | $228 | $912 | $3,098.02 | about $19.36 |
| 6,000 cf | $528 | $2,112 | $4,298.02 | about $17.91 |
Two things stand out. Per cubic foot, the light user still pays the most, about three times the 6,000 cubic foot household, because the fixed charge is spread over so little water. That gap is smaller than the "nearly five times" from the old schedule, though. The other point is that the meter now does real work. A median household's metered water went from about $50 a year to $120. A household at the permit line went from $17.51 a month to $32.67, or from about $210 a year to $392. Past 2,700 cubic feet, each extra hundred cubic feet costs two and a half times what it did just below the line.
Quarterly readings matter here. The district says the dry fall irrigation quarters are what push accounts into the higher tiers, which is why it projects revenue from actual quarterly readings rather than averages. A garden that looks modest on an annual average can still put one quarter into the $10 or $15 band. Meters are read at the end of each month on a rotating schedule by account number, with three groups read in March, June, September and December; January, April, July and October; and February, May, August and November. Since the new rates started with the July 1 fiscal year, households are now getting their first quarterly bills under them. If you want to test a specific use pattern, BCPUD posts an online water bill calculator.
Why the district is leaning on the meter now
The district's stated goal is to have metered sales carry about 20% of water revenue over time, roughly $270,000 a year at current levels. That would leave the annual service charge for capital work like pipe rehabilitation, tank upgrades and emergency well projects. The first step is to raise metered sales from about 5% to between 9% and 12% in FY 2026/27, depending on how much people cut back. The adopted budget expects $115,553 in metered sales, alongside $1,219,937 from the base charge.
The flat charge went up too. The April Proposition 218 notice says the water, sewer and septic/drainage enterprises were all running operating deficits. It describes the increases as a way to cover costs and rely less on reserves. In its budget presentation, the district named higher wages and benefits as a major water cost, including health insurance and CalPERS. The insurance line was budgeted at actual current-year costs plus 5%. The water budget also includes a new $80,000 repayment for emergency booster pump line work done in FY 2025/26 from reserves.
Two other details show how closely the district now tracks use. The laundromat is billed at the flat Tier 1 rate of $3.00 for all its water. The district attaches a condition to that rate: the laundromat has to pass the savings on through affordable wash prices. On April 15, the board also approved a three-month pilot renting automated meter hardware from Subeca. The May 20 manager's update said staff were preparing to install ultrasonic meters, and the adopted budget includes $16,500 for an automated meter pilot study.
The second line on the tax bill
The water charge is only part of the fixed cost. The other part depends on what happens to a house's wastewater.
BCPUD's sewer charge for FY 2026/27 is $2,194.24 per connection, up 8.0%. The budget counts 155 regular sewer connections plus 7 billed under a separate TEP line. This year's sewer budget sets aside $100,000 for an "interim program report" under a technical order, labeled a regulatory mandate, plus $20,000 for emergency preparation work on the wharf sewer main.
Houses served by septic systems pay a septic/drainage charge, which went from $80 to $210 per address, a 162.5% increase. The budget bills it to 360 addresses. The reason for the jump is in the budget notes. That enterprise gets no property tax money and no interest income. In FY 2025/26 it drew $31,320 from reserves to cover its costs, and it won't do that again. So the old $80 never covered the full cost of the service. The Prop 218 notice ties the charge to the district's longstanding duty to improve drainage and septic performance, and says the increase keeps that work going rather than expanding it. Marin County collects these annual charges for BCPUD and adds a $2 collection fee per parcel.
BCPUD's own estimates for a household at 1,000 cubic feet a quarter show the difference. With sewer, the bill comes to about $4,500.26 a year, or $375.02 a month. With septic/drainage, it's about $2,516.02, or $209.67 a month. The septic estimate doesn't include pumping, repairs or anything else involved in maintaining the system itself, which the owner pays for directly.
Reading a Bolinas house through its utility line
Put together, the numbers change what a buyer should look at. A weekend cottage that's mostly empty still pays the full $2,186.02 water charge plus either the sewer or septic/drainage charge. Those costs come with owning the connection, and occupancy doesn't change them. What does change the bill now is irrigated ground. A house with lawns, orchards or big beds can move through the $10 and $15 tiers during the fall quarters, while a cottage with a small yard stays near the median.
Before writing an offer, it's useful to have:
- The seller's recent quarterly water bills, especially the fall quarters, to see which tiers the property reaches.
- Whether the property is on sewer or septic, which shows on the tax bill as either the sewer charge or the septic/drainage charge.
- Whether the property has a Limited Water Use Permit, and what its allocation is compared with the standard 2,700 cubic feet.
- A run of your own expected use through the BCPUD bill calculator, assuming you'd water the garden the way you actually plan to.
All of this is general information about published utility rates, not legal, tax or financial advice, so please confirm the specifics of any property with BCPUD and the right professionals. If you're looking at a Bolinas house and want help reading its water bills or working out which BCPUD charges come with it, call or text Terry Donohue. Terry can help you look at the fall quarters before you decide how much garden you want to take on.