A ten-member Board of Trustees oversees the District. The board of trustees holds regular meetings prior to adopting any rates. Board meetings are generally held every two weeks, from 7:30 to 9:30 a.m. These meetings are open to the public. View our Board Agendas and Minutes page for the current schedule.
Customer Service FAQ
While nearly all aspects of the cost of living continue to rise, we pride ourselves on avoiding dramatic price adjustments. When they do occur, it is to maintain the quality, reliability, and stability of the services we provide, per our company mission. The following are reasons why rates may increase:
- Expenses are rising
- Consumption and revenue remain flat
- Facility repair and replacement
- Wholesale water/sewer increases
- Wholesale water/sewer supplier upgrades
- Safety/health regulations
Your bill may consist of several different charges depending on your location. For example, you may receive an operation and maintenance charge shown on your bill as ‘District Water’ or ‘District Sewer’. These funds are used to operate and maintain the Northwestern Water & Sewer District infrastructure that serves your home. You may also receive a separate treatment charge on your bill from another provider such as the Cities of Toledo, Perrysburg, Oregon, etc. These funds are charged by that city for the treatment of your water or wastewater and may be shown on your bill as ‘Toledo Water’ or ‘Oregon Sewer’, for example.
In some of our service areas, water/sewer accounts must remain in the name of the property owner. These areas are the accounts that were previously billed by Toledo. When we add a new area, we keep the same rules and procedures that the account was under previously for continuity purposes. We can still send the bill in care of (C/O) the tenant at the request of the owner, but the account must remain with the property’s owner per the County Auditor. Any account changes or updates must be requested by the property owner.
Information to assist both landlords and tenants.
Each year, in July, we transfer unpaid account balances from the previous year (July 1st through June 30th) to the County Auditor. Once they’ve been transferred to the Auditor, the balances will show up on the property taxes for that address in the following year. These balances remain with the address, they do not follow with the customer.
If a water/sewer bill is not paid, a penalty charge will be applied to the account and a penalty bill will be sent to you informing you of the date the past-due bill must be paid to avoid shut off. If payment is not made by that date then the water will be shut off and left off until payment is made. In the case of accounts that are billed only for sewer/debt charges or any other account with a delinquent balance, those will be certified to the Wood County Auditor and placed on the real estate taxes as a lien against the property.
If you can’t pay your bill by the shut-off date, please call us immediately and talk to a customer service representative. We can put you in a payment agreement which will allow you a few more days to pay your bill. The District has partnered with our local Salvation Army to provide assistance with our Pay it Forward Program. If you are in need, please contact them at (419) 352-5918 to see if you qualify. We also maintain a list of agencies that may be able to provide help by pledging for you.
If your water service is shut off, you will be required to pay your past due charges plus the $56 administrative charge to have service restored. If payment is received by 3 p.m., service will be reconnected the same day, otherwise, it will be reconnected the next business day.
You will be assessed a penalty charge of 10% of your bill amount or $5, whichever is greater.
It’s a billing method that takes the water consumption used in the winter quarter as the basis for billing sewer charges throughout the year. This means you won’t be paying additional sewer charges for warm weather purposes such as watering lawns, washing cars, landscaping, gardening, or filling pools. Eligible customers are automatically put on winter averaging if they have an entire month’s usage in February, March, and April in the current year. Find out more about winter averaging.