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Water. You can’t live without it, but what you pay for it in Collier County differs greatly, depending on where you live.

At $45 a month for a 5,000 gallon residential water and sewer usage, Naples city residents pay the least for water and sewer, while residents in Golden Gate city pay nearly $100 for the same amount.

That’s because local residents get their water from different utilities, including three municipalities, two private companies and a public/private utility.

Base rates range from a low of $6.25 per month in the City of Naples, to a high of $41.81 on Marco Island, but when you add usage charges, the average water/sewer bill for a 5,000-gallon user is approximately: Ave Maria, $74; City of Naples, $45; Collier County, $69; Golden Gate (city area), $96; Immokalee, $69; Marco Island, $104; Orange Tree, $65.

Like Collier County, which recently voted to raise its rates 3.5 percent, utility rates will go up at most local utilities this October.

Despite a whopping 12.74 percent rate increase this year and another in 2009, the City of Naples will continue to provide the lowest cost water-related service of any municipality or private utility in the county.

“Council likes to see comparisons, even with the increases, to see how we shake out and that we’re still among the lowest,” said Naples acting Public Works Director Bob Middleton.

Naples’ service is especially affordable by comparison to the City of Marco Island and Golden Gate’s Florida Government Utility Authority (FGUA), a statewide public/private conglomerate that provides water and sewer to a portion of, but not all, the city area of Golden Gate.

While wastewater cost per thousand gallons generally remains constant regardless of volume usage, most utilities offer water customers an incentive to lower the water side of their bill by lowering their use.

According to Tom Wides, operations director for the county’s public utilities, the average customer in Collier County uses about 8,000 gallons of water per month – 5,000 gallons indoors and 3,000 for outdoor use. He said the county’s inverted block rate structure provides lower rates per gallon for lower use customers. As consumption increases, the rates per 1,000-gallon unit go up. Rates for county water users jump from $2.20 to $3.30 when more than 5,000 gallons is used.

Marco Islanders see the largest such increase, jumping from $3.48 to $5.29 per unit, when usage exceeds 21,000 gallons per month. Marco also uses a tiered system that pro-rates usage costs according to lot size, in order to avoid penalizing conservative water users simply because they have more land to irrigate.

Marco residents also realize an additional savings on their wastewater as the utility does not bill for usage in excess of 6,000 gallons because it is presumed that anything over that amount is being used for irrigation and not going into the sewer system.

FGUA bumps its price up a little more than a dollar at the 6,000-gallon level and both Ave Maria and Naples increase their cost per unit 76 cents, although Naples residents have to use at least 15,000 gallons before that takes effect.

Orange Tree Utility customers are not currently on a block system; however, the utility is looking into the possibility of implementing one.

According to Orange Tree Office Manager Kim Retallick, unlike the county, their customers are largely single-family homes with little commercial usage and no multi-family, so the usage remains consistent.

In Collier County, private utilities, such as Orange Tree and Ave Maria, are regulated by the Collier County Water and Wastewater Utility Authority. Rate increases are approved or denied by the Authority’s board. Private companies are allowed an annual Consumer Price Index rate increase from the state’s Public Service Commission, which typically ranges from 3-4 percent per year.

According to Wides, the benefit of CPI increases is that they take the “spike” out of potential major rate increases from ever-increasing costs.

Orange Tree is currently seeking approval for a CPI increase of 4.96 percent for water rates and 5.21 percent for wastewater rates. A public meeting on the request is planned for Aug. 25.

Public utilities, such as counties and cities, are self-regulated. Like the private utilities, Naples and Collier County have approved index increases in years where there have been no pre-approved rate increases as part of a rate study.

In June, county commissioners approved a rate study that calls for a 3.5 percent rate increase, effective Oct. 1 and again in 2009. Marco Island’s rates will also be adjusted upwards by two percent both years.

FGUA is a unique private/public utility, approved by the legislature in 1999. It originally included five utilities from four counties, but currently owns two systems, one in Collier and another in Lee County. It has its own regulating board and does not answer to the county’s utility authority or the state’s Public Service Commission. On its Web site, FGUA has already scheduled its increases through 2011.

No matter where you get your water, when it comes to the final bill, Middleton stressed that customers can take an active part in controlling how much they pay, by practicing conservation.

“Because 70 percent of our water goes to irrigation, it’s important to follow watering restrictions to reduce consumption,” he said.