OAKLAND — East Bay water customers would see rates rise 19 percent over the next two years under a proposal announced Tuesday.

The East Bay Municipal Utility District said the increase is needed to more quickly replace old pipe, upgrade treatment plants and offset reduced water use by customers.

The district proposes a 9.25 percent increase to take effect July 12 and another 9 percent increase to go into effect on July 1, 2018. Compounded, the increases amount to nearly 19 percent over two years for the district’s 1.4 million residents in Alameda and Contra Costa counties.

About 35 percent of the water rate increase is needed to replace and fix old equipment, including 15 miles per year of aging pipe — some of it more than 90 years old, said Jenesse Miller, a water district spokeswoman.

About 30 percent of the rate increase in the coming year is to offset the higher-than-expected rate of customer conservation that is leaving the district with less revenue, she said.

The average EBMUD household used about 250 gallons of water per day before the drought began about six years ago. Now the average use is about 200 gallons per day.

“We appreciate our customers’ conservation efforts, and they should not feel they are being penalized for saving,” Miller said, “but reducing your water use doesn’t always mean your bill is doing to go down.”

The district has a post-drought dilemma facing many California water districts. Because most water districts’ costs are fixed regardless of how much water they deliver, customers conservation habits learned during the drought are leaving the district with less revenue than expected.

Under the proposed increase, an average EBMUD single family home using 200 gallons per day would see its monthly bill rise from $47.15 to $51.49, or an increase of $4.34 a month.

District administrators propose to raise the water system budget from $733 million in the current fiscal year to $863.9 million next year, a 17.9 percent increase.

Among the higher costs in the new budget are $3 million to establish a program to test drinking water in schools for lead.

The water board agreed Tuesday to schedule a public hearing on the two rate increases in consecutive years for 1:15 p.m. July 11 at district headquarters in downtown Oakland.

During the drought, the district helped avoid financial trouble by levying a 25 percent emergency surcharge on water bills, but the district agreed to drop that surcharge last July after near normal rainfall in the winter of 2015-2016 eased shortages.

In a related money matter Tuesday, the district proposed a five percent increase in wastewater rates in each of the next two years in its sewage service area, which includes some 680,000 East Bay residents.