Monroe Water Utility History and General Information
The City of Monroe water supply dates back to the early 1880’s when a local family around Monroe owned it. In 1906 the City of Monroe purchased the system for around $85,000 and today total assets have climbed to over $9,000,000.

The Water Utility is self-funded which means it receives no tax dollars to support its system and has to rely on user fees set by the Public Service Commission in order to operate. Currently we have 1 full time Utility Supervisor, 4 full time Certified Operators, 1 billing clerk and 1 Utility accountant to ensure that the City of Monroe’s water system is running properly and to take care of the bookkeeping and calculating of over 4,500 water, sewer and trash bills for the city every three months.

The Monroe water system is comprised of 5 deep wells ranging from 1,000 ft. – 1,800 ft. deep. These wells provide all the water used by the city including the water needed for fire protection. Each well will pump water directly into a reservoir located at each well site that holds 100,000 gals. With the exception of well # 3, which has a ground reservoir that holds 500,000 gals. There is a standby gasoline engine that has the ability to pump 800 – 1,000 gals per minute in the event of a power failure. The Utility has the capacity to pump 1,000 –6,000 gals per min. depending upon system requirements.

There are two 500,000 gallon elevated storage towers in the system to provide the city’s pressure and storage. The city has two completely separate pressure zones, the far northeast side of town is the high pressure zone and the rest of the city makes up the low zone, the two zones are valved so that in the event of a pressure lose in the system the water can flow through the booster station and help in either zone. The City has just under 2 million gallons of water in storage. Within the city limits there are over 60 miles of mains, 525 fire hydrants, and over 1,000 system valves that allows us to isolate a problem with minimal service loss to customers. The State Department of Natural Resources requires the city to disinfect its water with chlorine and has to maintain a chlorine residual of ½ part per million at all times. In addition to chlorine the city adds fluoride to its water to promote healthy bones and teeth.