why do we pay for water?

You are paying for its treatment and transport to you.

If you want free water you need to collect it yourself, with no help from the city.

You should not be charged sewer without one, contact the company, have them look at that map again.

The water has to be pumped from somewhere, then is has to be cleaned, and some places add fluoride to the water, then it has to be elevated and stored into a water tower so that natural gravity will deliver it to your house through city pipes.

All this costs money for the pumps, pipes, chemicals, storage tanks, etc.

As for the sewer - perhaps the city doesn't know that you are on a tank. Call and ask them.

You could put in a well to use your own water and get off city water all together. But you will have to pay for the drilling, pipes, pumps, electricity, chemicals, etc. to get the water into your house in a drinkable state.

In most places around the world, water is treated as a precious resource. Here in America, we waste billions of gallons a day. As a result of our government making strict requirements regarding microbes and other contaminants, we in America also enjoy the cleanest and safest drinking water in the world. To say we pay too much is not focusing on what is important. Americans pay more for most everything because we want safety, consistency and reliability in everything we do from the cars we drive to the medicines we take, the food we eat and water we drink. So, the next time your in a big American city, take a drink from most any faucet, it will be clean and will likely taste okay. You cant say that about many countries around the world!

Because the water is treated to make it safe to drink, and then piped to your house. Both of these things cost money in labor and equipment. Why do you want to get something for free when it costs money to produce?

Contaminated drinking water used to be one of the major causes of death. How about being thankful you don't have to worry about getting cholera every time you turn on the tap.

Feel free to get a well drilled or put a rain barrel outside your house.

We don't pay for the actual water. We pay for the service of having the water delivered to our homes and for the removal of the waste water from our homes.

Of course, you can always go live like Ted Kaczynski did. But if you want civilized service such as water and electricity, you will have to pay for them.

*EDIT* - "why do I still need a house filter to clean my drinking water" - You seem to confuse the words NEED and WANT. You do not NEED a water filter. The water out of your tap is potable. You WANT a water filter to filter out any non-harmful contaminates that are still in your water to get the water tasting better. I do the same thing - Out water is high in iron, and I like to filter it to remove it, which I think tastes better. But the iron is within specifications.

Someone has to collect, clean and pipe the water to your house. This costs money which you can pay to the water company or the government could nationalise it and you will pay for it indirectly in taxation.

Either way you will be paying for it unless all the people who work at the water company want to work for free.

You're not forced to pay for water. If you want to dig a well in your yard or have water delivered to your house in some other fashion, you are free to do so. If you want to use the water that the municipal authorities have cleaned of parasites and disease prior to pumping to your house, you have to pay for that though.

You are paying for the purification and delivery of water through pipes to you house.

You can always disconnect it and drink directly from the nearest river.

Or go to the store and pay outrageous prices for bottle water.

It's simple. You're not paying for water, You're paying for the infrastructure that supplies it to you,

I don't pay for water as I'm not connected to the water supply system and use water from my house roof that is stored in a water tank and supplied by my water pump,

to correct you they treat your drinking water and a lot of people abuse water. those people are paying for the abuse. i'm not sure why they are charging you the sewer if they charge you to pump out your tank to.that's just wrong