Denver water users face a bigger bill in 2023.

An Oct. 12 decision by Denver’s Board of Water Commissioners means the average Denver single-family residential water customer will pay $591 – up $35.51 per year or $2.96 per month.

Suburban customers living outside of the city will see an average increase of $47.26 annually, or $3.94 per month, and will pay an estimated $788 per year. Those customers are served by 29 different water districts that buy water from Denver and use Denver-maintained infrastructure. 

The third category of customers served by Denver Water includes suburban water districts that build and maintain their own water system infrastructure, but which also buy water from Denver. They will see the portion of their bill go up $13.01 for an average annual bill of $608 – an increase of $1.08 per month. These “read and bill” customers will also see charges for system maintenance and expansion added by their individual water districts.

Denver Water’s fixed monthly charges will go up $0.70 per month for a total of $17.90 for the 95% of city and suburban residents with a ¾ inch water meter. Users with larger meters and commercial accounts will also pay more. This fixed rate charge provides about 20% of Denver Water’s revenues.

Tiered rates for residential customers means they pay the lowest rates for essential indoor household use, such as cooking and cleaning. The rate for each customer is determined by the average winter monthly water use as listed on bills dated January through March each year. This can range from 0 to 5,000 gallons.

Water use during the growing season typically goes up with outdoor water use, which is charged a higher price on a per-1,000-gallon basis for “efficient water use outside for an average-sized yard, garden,” according to a news release.

The second tier range is 5,000 to 15,000 gallons.

More is charged in a third-tier rate.

“The third tier is water usage above the customer’s second tier, and it’s priced at the highest level to send a price signal that the usage may be excessive and to encourage conservation efforts,” Cathy Proctor, a spokesperson for Denver Water, said in a statement. “Customers can control their usage, and their bill, through the type of landscape they maintain and efficient watering practices. We have lots of information on using water efficiently indoors and outside at denverwater.org/BestPractices.”

Denver Water is investing $2.3 billion over the next 10 years to maintain, repair and upgrade its system to “make it more resilient and flexible in the future,” according to Denver Water.

Projects underway include a $531-million project to increase the capacity of Gross Reservoir above Boulder. Plans include raising the height of the dam 131 feet from its current 340 feet above the stream bed. This will increase its capacity from 42,000 acre-feet to 119,000 acre-feet. When completed, the dam will be 471 feet above the stream bed and contain about 1.5 million cubic yards of concrete, officials said.

This will make the reservoir Denver Water’s second largest, just behind Dillon Reservoir.

Denver’s water system gathers runoff from more than 4,000 square miles of land, much of it on the Western Slope. The average of 285,000 acre-feet, or more than 94 billion gallons of water collected each year, is stored in 12 major reservoirs and is transported under the Continental Divide through a network of tunnels. Denver began building its system in the early 1900s, starting with Cheesman Reservoir on the South Platte River near Deckers.

When it was completed in 1905, Cheesman Dam was the world’s tallest at 221 feet above the stream bed.