I was aware of what I pay for drinking water from the city. Mine comes from snowmelt piped down from the mountains by the Hetch Hetchy system, which, like the Golden Gate Bridge, was built back in the days when such things could be built without causing an environmentalist's head to explode. Even now environmentalists are trying to get us to destroy the reservoir and return the valley to its "natural" state. We pay to keep this system running, and will be paying more in the future to earthquake-proof it. I got no complaints on either. We get well water when necessary to top things off.
When I was talking about taxes, I was thinking of individual private wells, which as you say, are more trouble than they're worth in cities. Much like solar panels for electricity.
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Re: well water