The average Skagit PUD water bill is about $150 every two months, though your bill may be higher or lower depending on usage. That works out to roughly $2.50 per day for the typical household. But here's what most people don't think about: you're not just paying for water. You're paying for a system that ensures it's always there when you need it.

The Real Math
People often compare their water bill to their phone bill, their streaming services, or their morning coffee. But water isn't a subscription service or a convenience. It's the difference between your house being functional and your house being unlivable.

No water means no cooking, no cleaning, no bathing, no laundry. It means driving to stores, rationing bottles, and making contingency plans. It means a non-functioning home.

That bill is not just paying for water. It's paying for the entire system that delivers it: the pipes under your street, the treatment plant, the maintenance crews, the emergency response, the testing and monitoring. It's paying for reliability.

What You're Actually Paying For
Your bill pays for infrastructure — the kind that's invisible until it fails. The average water pipe lasts 75-100 years. The ones under your street might be 60 years old. Every year we delay replacing them, the risk of failure increases.

Treatment plants need upgrading to meet evolving water quality standards. Backup systems need to exist so one failure doesn't leave entire neighborhoods without water. Monitoring systems need to detect problems before they become emergencies.

This infrastructure costs money. Delaying the investment doesn't make it cheaper — it makes failures more likely and emergency repairs more expensive.

The Bottom Line
Nobody likes rate increases. But the actual question isn't whether you want to pay more. It's whether you want the water to be there when you turn on the tap.

Because the day it isn't, you'll find out exactly what water is worth.