This is a design mockup. The Marrowbone Creek Public Water Supply District is an invented body. Every name, number, address, rate, date and reading on this page is a placeholder.

Marrowbone Creek Public Water Supply District

A political subdivision of the State of Missouri, organised 1966. Serving 3,840 connections and about 9,400 people across the north half of the county.

Break line, answered 24 hours by the operator on call (816) 555-0194

System status

Updated Tuesday 9:15 a.m. by the operator on duty. This board is changed by hand every morning and again whenever anything happens.

Boil advisory
None in effect
No advisory has been issued anywhere in the district since 14 March. When one is issued it appears on this line first, and it names the roads it covers, the date it was lifted, and what to do in the meantime. An advisory that only says "customers who lost pressure" is not good enough and we have stopped writing them that way.
Planned work
In progress this week
Hydrant flushing, Tuesday to Thursday, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., on Route H, Old Stage Road, and everything east of the Marrowbone bridge. Your water will not go off, but it may run rusty for an hour after the crew passes. Do not wash white laundry on those days.
System pressure
Normal
All seven towers and standpipes full overnight. Knoxville is at 82 percent this morning, which is where it should be after the flushing draw. The plant is running both shifts.
Last bacteriological sample
Absent, which is the pass
Six sites sampled on the 3rd, all absent for total coliform. Samples are taken monthly and the results are filed with the Department of Natural Resources whether they are good or not.
Meter reading
Reads the 25th to the 28th
Bills go out on the 1st and are due on the 20th. If a meter cannot be read because of a dog or a locked gate, the bill is estimated and it says so on the face of it.

Nothing on this board is a colour code. Every line says in words what the condition is, so it reads the same on a phone in the dark as it does on a screen in the office.

If your water is off, or it came out brown.

Do these four things in order before you telephone. Two of the four fix it without us, and the other two turn a five minute call into a thirty second one, because the operator will already know where to drive.

  1. Ask a neighbour on the same road

    If they have water and you do not, the problem is between the main and your house and it is very likely your side of the meter. If the whole road is out, it is ours and we probably already know. Either way it is the first thing we will ask you.

  2. Look in the meter pit

    Lift the lid. If the dial is spinning with every tap in the house shut off, you have a leak between the meter and the house, and that is yours to repair. Shut your own valve and call a plumber, not us. This single check saves people a great deal of money.

  3. If it is brown, run the outside spigot, not the kitchen

    Discoloured water after flushing is iron and manganese lifted off the inside of the pipe. It is unpleasant and it is not a health problem. Run the hose bib closest to the road for ten minutes, cold only, until it clears. Running an inside tap just pulls it through the water heater.

  4. Then call the break line and say where you are by road

    Not by address. "Half a mile north of the Route H junction on Old Stage" gets a truck moving. Tell us if you can hear water running in a ditch or see a wet patch in a field, because that is how a main break is found at night.

The rate schedule, worked through on a real bill.

Water bills are confusing because they are printed in thousands of gallons and paid in dollars, and the two numbers never appear next to each other. Here is the tariff, and then a household that used 4,000 gallons, added up line by line.

Residential tariff, effective 1 January

Minimum bill, includes the first 1,000 gallons$34.50
Next 4,000 gallons, per 1,000$8.90
Next 5,000 gallons, per 1,000$7.60
Everything over 10,000 gallons, per 1,000$6.85
State primacy fee, per connection$0.36

Everything else that can appear on a bill

Late charge, after the 20th10 percent
Shut-off notice, after the 5th of the next month$25
Reconnection, during working hours$60
Reconnection, after hours or weekend$120
Returned payment$30
New tap, 3/4 inch, within 300 feet of an existing main$2,850
Meter test at a member's requestRefunded in full if the meter is found to read fast.$75

A household that used 4,000 gallons

Previous reading, 28 May418,000
Present reading, 26 June422,000
Used4,000 gallons
Minimum bill, first 1,000 gallons$34.50
3,000 gallons at $8.90$26.70
State primacy fee$0.36
Due by the 20th$61.56

Four thousand gallons a month is about right for two people with no livestock and no garden. If yours is suddenly double that and nothing changed in the house, you have a running toilet or a leak, and the district would rather help you find it than bill you for it. Telephone the office and ask for a leak adjustment before you pay. There is a form and it is granted more often than people expect.

What the district actually is, and where it stops.

A public water supply district is not a company. It is a unit of local government, formed by petition of the landowners and by order of the circuit court, with the power to set rates and to borrow, and with an elected board answerable to the people it serves. There are no shareholders and there is no profit. Every dollar over the cost of running the system goes into pipe.

Marrowbone Creek treats its own water rather than buying it finished, which is unusual for a district this size and is why there is a plant running twelve hour shifts around the clock. Five wells feed a lime softening plant. What the district owns beyond that is 214 miles of main, seven storage structures, six booster stations and the meter in your pit.

Water quality reports are published every year by the first of July, and a copy is mailed to every household whether it is asked for or not. If you did not get yours, telephone the office and one will be posted the same week.

The boundary, in the terms the deed uses. The district takes in all of Township 57 north of the county line, the west half of Township 58, and the sections east to the Marrowbone bridge. It stops at Route DD on the south and at the river on the east. If your drive comes off Route H, Old Stage Road, Beaver Creek Road or anything between them, you are almost certainly inside it. If you are not sure, read the meter lid: ours are stamped MCPWSD.

Connections3,840
People served, estimated9,400
Miles of distribution main214
Storage, all structures7, 2.6 million gal
Booster stations6
Average day612,000 gal
Highest day on record1.04 million gal, July 2012
Source5 wells, lime softening
Full time employees11, plant staffed 24/7
Oldest pipe still in service1968, asbestos cement

The board meets on the second Tuesday, and you may simply turn up.

7 p.m. at the district office, 1489 SE Route H. Meetings are open under the Missouri Sunshine Law and the agenda is posted on the office door and on this page at least 24 hours ahead. You do not need permission to attend and you do not need to be on the agenda to speak during the public comment period at the start.

Subdistrict 1North of Route H to the county line. Seat expires 2028.
Subdistrict 2Old Stage Road and the Beaver Creek bottoms. Seat expires 2027.
Subdistrict 3The town edge and the east tower service area. Seat expires 2029.
Subdistrict 4South to Route DD. Seat expires 2028.
Subdistrict 5Everything east of the bridge. Seat expires 2027.
Terms and electionsThree year terms, one or two seats each April, filed with the county clerk. Uncontested most years, which is worth changing.

To get an item onto the agenda rather than into public comment, telephone the office by the Thursday before. Rate changes require a published hearing and are never voted at the meeting they are first raised in. Minutes of the last twelve meetings are kept at the office and a copy of any of them costs ten cents a page, which is what the statute allows the district to charge.