Despite urgent calls for water conservation amid one of California’s worst droughts, more than 255,000 homeowners and businesses across the state can still use all the water they want without paying higher bills.
And nobody even knows how much water they are using. From Bakersfield to Sacramento to Shasta County, 42 communities in California have not installed the most basic tool of water management — water meters — for all of their connections. People without meters are charged a flat monthly rate in those areas for water, usually between $20 and $35 a month. And those communities use 39 percent more water per capita than the state average, according to an analysis of state Department of Water Resources records.
http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_25303957/california-drought-more-than-255-000-homes-and?source=rss