2026 Water Rate Adjustment Notice

For 2026, the Water District has chosen to align its rate adjustment with the Federal Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA). The Federal COLA for 2026 is 2.8%.

The Board of Directors approved splitting this increase evenly between the monthly minimum charge and the usage rate per 1,000 gallons. As a result:

• The monthly minimum charge will increase by 1.4%, from $41.00 to $41.57.

• The rate per 1,000 gallons will also increase by 1.4%, from $10.00 to $10.14.

These adjustments ensure the district can continue to meet rising operational costs while minimizing the impact on customers.

If you have any questions, please contact the district office.

Please be advised that there will be intermittent water outages and/or reduced water pressure in our system between 9:00 P.M. and 5:00 A.M. for the next five days or fewer.

These interruptions will vary by location, with some areas experiencing more impact than others. We encourage all customers to plan accordingly.

This temporary disruption is necessary to fill our new water tower. Since our new booster station is not yet ready for operation, we are using the old system to complete the process.

We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your understanding as we work to improve and upgrade our water system.

If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact us:

• Phone: 620-653-2649
• Email: russrwd3@rwisp.com
• Facebook: @RussellRWD3
• Website: www.russellrwd3.com

Thank you for your patience and cooperation.

We all have noticed that the State of Kansas has had less moisture this year than past years. We all have to realize the value of water and keeping it sustainable and that in times like these of Severe Drought, Extreme Drought, and Exceptional Drought, which Rush County is in all three levels across the county.  Rush County, more specifically City of Otis wells, is where we get the water for our district. The spectrum that RRWD#3 works off of for the sustainability of water is, Residential consumption, livestock consumption, and lastly agriculture/vegetation consumption.  If we look at the stages of what RRWD#3 would expect to happen if we started imposing restriction on our customers would work in reverse order. First, we would require our customers to halt the usage of water for any recreational use. Then the second step would be halting the use of agriculture/vegetation consumption and then if further restrictions are needed, continue up the list to restrict the use of livestock and monitor residential use. 

All these stages are preventable with just a little extra care. Some examples that we have already observed are easy fixes. One situation is for livestock owners to not do "set it and forget it" approach to stock tank floats. Many times, these floats can work themselves out of the settings they are on and begin to overflow the tanks. So, we need to try and check these floats regularly, ideally every day. Along with the floats sometimes livestock owners will forget that they have left the hydrants on at a slow fill. However, even with a slow flow the tank will overfill and waste water. Let us all figure out ways to remind ourselves to go back and turn those hydrants off. Set alarms on our phones, rubber bands on our wrists, or a ripped t-shirt band on the rearview mirror. We all have done it, even myself, while watering gardens or trees. We all just need to be more aware of what we are wasting. Water is the bloodline of life, when it is gone, it is gone.  

So, if you can, take some time and explore our website and visit some of our links to look at helping ways to conserve where we can and look at some of the links of the explanation and data of our current drought status.

Thank you 
Jamie Tomlinson
Manager RRWD#3

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