Plain-language answers on the consent-decree-driven water and sewer rate increases, with the official rate sheet.
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Water and sewer bills are the question Fort Smith residents ask most, and the rate increases on them are real and ongoing. Here is the plain-language version: what is going up, by how much, when, and why. The short answer to "why" is a 2015 federal consent decree that requires the city to fix decades of sewer overflows. These answers explain the schedule; they do not estimate your individual bill. For the exact current rates, the city's sewer-rate page is linked at the bottom — note that the PDF behind the utility site's own "rate sheet" link is the 2018 schedule and is several increases out of date.
Because of a 2015 consent decree (a binding legal agreement) between the City of Fort Smith and the U.S. EPA, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality. After decades of sanitary-sewer overflows into the Arkansas River and other waterways, the decree requires the city to repair and upgrade its sewer system. The total work has been estimated at roughly $800 million, and the rate increases are how the city pays for it.
Sewer rates rise 3.5% per year. The first increase took effect June 1, 2025, and another 3.5% increase takes effect each January 1 through 2030. For an average household this works out to roughly an extra $3 per month each year. This is the sewer portion of your bill only.
Yes, but it is not on the sewer schedule. A water-rate increase took effect on 1 August 2024 — the first water increase since 2011 — after the Board of Directors voted 5–2 on 11 July 2024. For a typical low-volume household (about 3 CCF a month) it added roughly $2 a month, taking the water part of the bill from about $11.81 to about $13.98 before fees and tax. A second water increase was proposed for 2025 and the Board held off on it; as of mid-2026 no further water increase has been adopted. The water increase and the sewer increases are separate line items on your bill.
It is a court-enforced settlement. The city admitted its sewer system had been overflowing and polluting waterways, and agreed to a long list of repairs and upgrades on a deadline, overseen by federal and state regulators. If the city misses its obligations it can face penalties. The decree is the legal reason the rate increases exist, rather than a choice the city made on its own.
Originally the 15-year decree was set to expire on 1 January 2027. On 3 March 2026 the city's Board of Directors approved a modification, negotiated with the regulators, extending the compliance deadline by 11.5 years to 30 June 2038. The Justice Department then published it for public comment, and in July 2026 the U.S. District Court entered it — so it is now final and in force. Alongside the extra time, the modification lets the city meet its targets on a three-year average rather than a fixed annual quota, requires the city to file a financial management plan showing how the remaining work will be paid for, and confirms the 3.5% annual sewer increases through 2030. Spreading the cost over more years is part of why the increases run on a long, gradual schedule rather than arriving all at once.
The City of Fort Smith Utility Department publishes the official water, sewer, and sanitation rate sheet online. Your bill is calculated from a base service fee plus the volume of water used and sewer discharged, so the rate sheet is the authoritative source for the current figures. The link is below.
Mostly into the sewer system itself rather than the treatment plants. EPA's settlement summary describes about 500 miles of sewer line and 23 pump stations, and the decree requires the city to survey all of it and repair or replace every pipe segment and manhole likely to fail within ten years, plus standing cleaning and grease and root control. You can see what the federal record says about the two treatment plants at the end of those pipes on The Sewer Plants on the Record.
The city runs Project Concern, which halves the water base and usage rates for qualifying households — ask the Utility Department at 479-784-2231 whether you qualify. Separately, the 2015 settlement funded a project worth at least $400,000 to repair or replace leaking private sewer laterals — the pipe between your house and the city main, which is normally the homeowner's responsibility — for qualifying low-income homeowners. If yours leaks, it is worth asking about by name.