SAN ANTONIO -- With summer just around the corner, the San Antonio Water System is looking for ways to encourage its residential customers to conserve water when demand peaks.

SAWS officials will present a proposal to City Council members on Wednesday that would change the utility's current rate structure that has been in place since the 1990s.

"Under this proposal, low water use will become more affordable for residential customers, while high discretionary use will become more expensive," said Greg Flores a Vice President at SAWS.

According to Flores, under the proposal residential customers using less than 17,000 gallons per month would see their bills drop by up to 8 percent.

The average SAWS customer only uses about 7,800 gallons per month, he said. That means roughly 93 percent of SAWS customers would see their bills decrease.

Customers who use more than 17,000 gallons per month would see their bills increase.

"This structure does provide a significant carrot to get your water use down," said Flores. "Get your water use down, do what you can to save water not only outdoors but indoors as well and you could see a pretty significant reduction."

The proposal would not affect business users who require water for their operations, but it will apply to their use of irrigation systems.

Flores said the change would not provide any new revenue for SAWS, it's simply a conservation tool.

"By sending this higher price signal to high discretionary water users we will hopefully get them to use less water and save 1.4 billion gallons of water every year." Flores said.

SAWS would like to see council approve the proposed change by April so the new rate structure can be implemented by the high-demand summer months.