Beginning in March, most people in Logan County will be seeing an increase to their water bills.

At it’s November meeting, the Logan Todd Regional Water Commission (LTRWC) voted to increase the price of its water 44 cents per 1,000 gallons. That means Logan County’s individual water districts will have to decide what to do about their own rates.

According to Kyle Kenner, the executive director for LTRWC, the organization is not selling as much water as it once did.

“Some industries have left and with the economy, people are conserving more,” Kenner said. “This has also been a very wet year with more rainfall and people haven’t used as much water because of that too.”

He said they are currently selling about 3.9 million gallons per day.

“If we just sell a couple more hundred thousand gallons per day, it would make a big difference,” Kenner said.

Kenner said that the increase was spurred on by USDA Rural Development.

“We have to turn in our annual budget to Rural Development – that’s who holds our largest loan,” Kenner said. “They didn’t approve of our budget. They had suggested that we raise our rates last year and we put it off.”

LTRWC currently charges its customers (which are the individual water districts in Logan and Todd counties) $3.31 per 1,000 gallons of water. The new rate beginning in March will be $3.75.

Some of Logan County’s cities have already begun to make their decisions. Adairville voted Monday night to pass on the cost to its water customers.

Mayor Jim Wilkerson said the city would not be able to pay for the increased cost of water alone and the city council voted unanimously to increase its water 44 cents per $1,000 gallons.

Currently, the minimum water bill in Adairville is $25 with a 2,000 gallon minimum. Beginning in March, it will go up to $25.88.

Auburn also voted on the issue Monday, but chose not to increase its water rates any more. The city of Auburn, however, has an annual rate increase built in to its water ordinance.

Lewisburg took no action on LTRWC rate increase at its monthly meeting this week.

Likewise, the city of Russellville has not yet taken any action on the increase.

The three county water districts – South Logan, North Logan and East Logan – have not yet voted on any sort of a rate increase. However, representatives from each said that they are expected to raise their rates to account for the 44 cent increase in the near future.

Currently each of those three water districts have a minimum requirement of 2,000 gallons of water per month. The minimum monthly bills are:

• $20.86 for South Logan

• $22.67 for East Logan

• $23.24 for North Logan

“If our increase is just passed on, the average user will see about a $1.25 increase to their monthly bill,” Kenner said.