Madeira has had two different water suppliers for 75 years. This resulted in two different water rates for members of their community.
Moreover, Madeira owns its water mains on the side of the city that IHWW supplies water. Consequently, they are responsible for the replacement of these mains. IHWW is only responsible for maintenance and supply of water. Madeira deferred water main replacement for the city on the side Indian Hill serves for approximately 70 years. For all those years, IHWW has handled the water main breaks, project inspections, home leak checks, meter readings and line locating at no cost to Madeira.
Over the last five years, Madeira began replacing a large volume of its water infrastructure as the deferred replacement left its infrastructure in a deteriorating state. To replace large volumes of pipe, Madeira Council approved a 25% surcharge to be placed on Indian Hill’s water rates in 2012. Indian Hill was simply the collecting agent for the 25% fee. The entire 25% collected was given to Madeira to fund its infrastructure.
However, this surcharge wasn’t sufficient to account for the necessary volume of infrastructure replacement. Therefore, the Madeira Council voted to increase the surcharge from 25% to 41% in 2023. This 41% surcharge has become a significant point of contention to these customers. Consequently, Madeira solicited proposals for GCWW to take over their current water system supplied by Indian Hill. Madeira has received an aggressive proposal from GCWW to supply water to the entire city and take over ownership of the distribution system. Adding more customers helps GCWW offset $125 million Bolton Plant PFAS facility and $200 million in lead service line replacement.