Do I get my water from SRP or the city in Phoenix?

Your potable (drinkable) water and your sewer service both come from a city water utility. The utility owns the treatment plants, the buried pipes in the street, the meter at your property, and the sewer mains. It treats the water to federal and state safety standards, sends you a monthly water and sewer bill, and is the one you call about a leak, low pressure, a billing question, or a service shutoff.

SRP sits a step upstream from all of that. It captures and stores water from the Salt and Verde Rivers behind its dams and delivers that raw water through a canal system to cities and their treatment plants. SRP describes its core job this way: it is a community-based, not-for-profit utility that provides "water and power to more than 2 million people in central Arizona." The key word is raw. SRP hands off untreated water to the city, and the city is what turns it into something safe to drink.

So the chain looks like this. SRP (and the Central Arizona Project, which brings in Colorado River water) deliver the raw supply. Your city treats it, pressurizes it, and pipes it to your home. After you use it, the city sewer system carries the wastewater away. SRP touches the front of that chain and your tap is at the far end of it.

The confusion is easy to understand, because SRP really does deal in water, just not the kind that reaches your faucet. Phoenix-area drinking water leans heavily on the rivers SRP manages. City of Phoenix figures show its supply is roughly 60% Salt and Verde River water (delivered through SRP), about 40% Colorado River water (through the Central Arizona Project), and around 2% groundwater. So SRP water is genuinely in your glass, it just passed through a city treatment plant first.

The name adds to the mix-up too. SRP stands for Salt River Project, which sounds like a water company, and the word "water" shows up all over its materials. But for the average homeowner, SRP is the company that either keeps the lights on or, in older neighborhoods, runs the irrigation schedule. It is not the company that fixes a water main or reads your household water meter.

A practical tell: SRP and many cities also run the electric side, but your water and sewer charges come from the city. If a service appears on a city utility bill, the city handles it.

The fastest way to sort this out is to look at your bills. They sort the services for you.

• City water bill. A statement from City of Phoenix Water Services (or Mesa, Chandler, Tempe, Glendale, Scottsdale, and similar) that lists water and sewer or wastewater charges. This is your drinking water and your sewer. Phoenix splits the water side into a monthly service charge, tiered volume charges, and an environmental charge, with sewer billed off your winter water use.
• SRP electric bill. A monthly statement for electricity (kilowatt-hours, energy and demand charges). Many Phoenix homes get power from SRP, and this bill has nothing to do with your plumbing or tap water.
• SRP irrigation bill or assessment. If your property sits in an older SRP flood irrigation area, you may get a separate irrigation charge or a delivery schedule. This covers the raw water that floods your yard on set dates, not your indoor water.

If a charge is for water you drink or for sewer, it is the city. If it is for electricity or for flood irrigation, it is SRP. Sorting your bills into those two piles answers the question for almost every household.

Flood irrigation is a holdover from the Valley's farming past, and it is the main reason SRP delivers water to some homes directly. SRP began over a century ago to store river water and deliver it to farmland across the Salt River Valley. As Phoenix grew, neighborhoods were built on that former farmland while keeping their long-standing water rights and the canal and ditch network that served them.

In those areas, SRP releases water on a schedule and floods the yard a few inches deep, soaking the soil and large trees. The water is raw and non-potable, fine for grass and shade trees but not for drinking. SRP moves a large volume of this water each year, on the order of hundreds of thousands of acre-feet, across its irrigation districts. If your lot has irrigation gates, berms, or a standpipe, and your neighbors flood their lawns on a set day, you likely have SRP irrigation. For that schedule, a missed delivery, or an irrigation gate problem, SRP is who you call, not the city and not a plumber.

It helps to keep the two water sources mentally separate. The treated water in your pipes comes from the city. The flood water in your yard, if you have it, comes from SRP and stays outside the house.

For nearly every plumbing or water-service issue, the answer is the city, not SRP. A few common situations:

• A leak, a water main break in the street, or no water at all. Call City of Phoenix Water Services (or your own city utility). They own the main and the meter.
• A high bill or a billing question on water or sewer. That is the city utility that issued the statement.
• Water quality, taste, hardness, or a boil notice. The city treats and tests the water, so the city is your contact.
• A plumbing problem inside your home, like a slab leak, water heater, or backed-up drain. That is on you and your plumber; the city's responsibility generally ends at the meter and the public sewer main.
• A flood irrigation schedule or a problem with your irrigation delivery. That is SRP.

The Arizona Department of Water Resources, the state agency that oversees water supply, encourages residents to understand their water provider and use water wisely given the desert climate. Knowing which utility does what saves you a wasted phone call when something goes wrong. As a rule of thumb: city for the tap and the sewer, SRP for power and flood irrigation.

To go deeper on the bill itself, see our guide on how to read your Phoenix water and sewer bill. To understand seasonal rules on outdoor use, see our page on Phoenix water restrictions.