Maybe you’re right. Maybe I just wasn’t pay close attention to the rest of the state. In my region, the growth is inordinate but they’ve assured everyone there is enough supply for 100+ years regardless of what happens with the river. One of the reasons I relocated where I did. But if what you say is accurate, I’d guess at some point they won’t have choice but to increase prices across the board.
The problem really is they spent so long insisting CAP was gonna fix everything. So they didn’t up rates much while that was being built to avoid rebellion. And then there was the delay in figuring out how to use CAP (even though there was only really ever one answer, yea government) which eventually went to multiple votes. And again no serious rate rises during that, because honest CAP will fix everything. And now here we are, CAP is helping certainly. But it didn’t fix everything. And the Phoenix draw keeps threatening to functionally end CAP for us. They are periodically getting some rate raises in there. But no politician has the balls to say “we’re charging 1/3 as much as Detroit, and it’s not because Detroit it paying too much, we’re in the desert, we need to pay accordingly”. And I don’t necessarily blame them. I’d probably be the only person in town to actually vote for them... maybe their mom... maybe not.
Sadly the only people I know that kinda get the problem are liberals. Conservatives just aren’t paying attention. And liberals of course always blame the company. “How dare almond farms come here?” Have you looked at water prices? I know how they dare. It’s a great business decision, at least for 15 years or so.