Support came from business and environmental leaders. It also came from regulators who threatened sanctions if San Diego did not comply with longtime requirements that will entail more rate increases in 2011 and beyond.

Critics complained that residents seemed to be shouldering too much of the water-rate increase, despite Sanders' assertion that the fees were equitable.

“These bills don't sock it to residential customers, and they don't hit business with inappropriate rates either,” Sanders said.

Two groups dispute that. The watchdog Utility Consumers' Action Network calls the increase “a bailout for business,” and a pro-labor think tank, the Center on Policy Initiatives, calls it “lopsided” in favor of business.

The Center on Policy Initiatives has been reviewing the possibility of a citizens referendum to overturn the water increase.

UCAN has threatened to sue the city over what it calls inaccuracies in a notice the city sent ratepayers about the planned increase. A spokeswoman said yesterday that remains an option, but City Attorney Michael Aguirre told the council the threat was toothless. Aguirre said the notice could have been better, but it was legally sufficient.

Council President Scott Peters and council members Toni Atkins, Ben Hueso, Kevin Faulconer, Jim Madaffer and Tony Young approved both increases.

Councilman Brian Maienschein opposed them, citing legal compliance and noticing issues. Councilwoman Donna Frye voted against the water rate increase, criticizing a decision not to return to bimonthly – and more accurate – bills.

Roughly 7,000 people filed formal protests; by law, the vote would have been nixed if a majority of the city's 274,000 water customers protested.

The meeting began at 2 p.m. and ended more than seven hours later. Business leaders supported water and sewer rate increases, while critics targeted the water rates, perhaps because sewer rates changed in 2004 to end a historic practice of residential ratepayers picking up a portion of the business tab.

In his most detailed public presentation yet about the water-rate increase, Water Department Director Jim Barrett called the new fees fair but acknowledged homeowners as a class will pay more than others next year.

Barrett said homeowners pay 42 percent of the water service charges now and will pay 44 percent next year while using 39 percent of the water. Commercial customers contribute 21 percent of the revenue this year and will chip in 20 percent next year. Barrett didn't say how much water they use.

He said the shift was “not a drastic change” and added, “We haven't gone and purposely thrown more of the cost to any particular user or group of users.”

Barrett underscored his point with a slide that he had showed the council at a meeting in early January. The slide was slightly altered since then, to specify that the “residential class will pay more under these rates.”

Barrett said everyone's water usage fees will rise but a base rate will drop for almost everybody. That base rate will increase only for customers with 1-inch water meters who, Barrett said, pay “artificially low” rates now.

That change will affect thousands of customers, primarily homeowners.

Retired mechanical engineer Hal Simon opposed the water-rate proposal because more than 10,000 homeowners like him, who require 1-inch pipes for adequate water pressure or for larger homes, are being “unfairly treated.”

Randy Barnett, an official with the state Department of Health Services, urged the council to raise rates because he was “deeply concerned” about project delays that are “a matter of health and safety.”