Butler County is already Hamilton’s biggest water customer, contractually obligated to provide a minimum of 2.92 billion gallons of water a year based on a 2014 contract. But the city has provided more than the minimum. In 2024, Hamilton provided about 3.5 billion gallons of water, which generated about $6.7 million in revenue from the county.
With more volume of water, the city will see an increase in revenues, said Hamilton Director of Infrastructure Edwin Porter.
This also means more customers will receive Hamilton’s award-winning water, which earned world honors in the annual Berkeley Springs International Water Tasting Competition in 2010 and 2015. It was also named the country’s best water in 2009, 2014 and 2018.
Hamilton, as well as several communities in the region, gets its water from the Great Miami Buried Valley Aquifer, but the treatment of the raw water has been the difference in its taste, city officials have said.
Butler County Water and Sewer provides water services to about 100,000 customers in the central and eastern townships of Butler County, as well as the city of Monroe and village of New Miami. The city of Hamilton has approximately 30,000 water customers.
This last phase requires Hamilton to increase the minimum gallons of water a year it provides to the county up to 4.83 billion, a 50% increase.
Cities like Middletown and Fairfield provide their own water services. Hamilton has two water treatment plants, with the South Water Treatment Plant being a 40 million gallon per day facility.
“Of course, the relationship between the city of Hamilton and Butler County is extremely important,” Porter said. “We both serve citizens of Butler County, and through our collaborative efforts, we are able to serve at the highest level.”
Hamilton has some of the lowest-costing water in Southwest Ohio, with its water rates ranking 14th and only behind Middletown and Fairfield in Butler County, according to a survey of 69 water jurisdictions. Hamilton’s water cost for an average customer, which is 3,000 cubic feet of water in a three-month period, is $122.61, according to the 2024 survey.
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