City of Milpitas
Letter to the Editor on Water Rates
Milpitas Post/Mercury News
July 6, 2018
Dear Editor,
Robert Marini’s letter regarding Milpitas water rate setting (7/6/18) included several major errors and
misleading statements. On behalf of the city’s water utility, I write to correct them so that your readers
can have a better understanding of our water system and our city’s management of it.
First, the matter of “water loss.” Every water system records a difference between water purchased
from its wholesale suppliers and the water sold to customers as measured by water meters. The largest
source of this difference is aging water meters that over time under-record water usage by customers,
and leaks in the system. Although no water system will ever be leak proof, we have an obligation,
especially in drought-prone California, to reduce water loss as much as practical in the interest of
conservation.
