SACRAMENTO COUNTY-

During a historic drought, one would think water use would be heavily monitored, but 98,000 Sacramento-area homes do not have a water meter.

“Up until 2005, the city had an exemption in its charter for residential water metering,” Jessica Hess, with the city’s utilities department, said Wednesday. “It said that residential parcels wouldn’t be metered.”

In the City of Sacramento alone, there are 66,000 without meters.

After 2005, it’s been a mad dash to get everyone metered. The home Towanna Washington lives in is unmetered, for now. She pays her landlord a flat utilities fee.

Within the next year, Washington says she’ll start seeing her own water bill.

The city is also using this opportunity to replace water mains.

“So we’re only disturbing a neighborhood once,” Hess said.

So far, around 318,000 meters have been installed – translating to 80 percent of all water connections in the area – now under the watchful eye of the water authority.

Each meter costs around $1,200 to $2,000 to install, given that there are no roadblocks that hinder work.

Eric Harryman, Marin Austin and Ian McDonald contributed to this report.

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