Rates for Effingham County water users may be heading up.

County engineer Steve Liotta said Savannah Industrial and Domestic Water, which provides drinking water to county customers, is raising its rates. Water rates from I&D will go up 10 cents per 1,000 gallons on April 1.

“With the water agreement with Savannah, it requires them to notify us if they are going to raise rates,” he said.

The reason for the price hike is because of the cost of the treating the surface water and the processing of that water, Liotta said. Neither is Effingham alone in seeing its rates go up.

“This is the same increase they propose to their city residents,” he said.

Savannah I&D also raised its rates by 8 cents a year ago, but county commissioners did not pass that cost increase along.

Liotta said the average household uses roughly about 300 gallons of water a day, or about 9,000 gallons a month. At that rate of usage, the price hike would be about 90 cents a month on a water bill with the new Savannah I&D charge.

With the 8 cents the county did not pass along as a charge last year, the average hike would be $1.62 a month.

There also will be a rise in the cost to provide wholesale water to bulk users.

Commissioners approved the first reading of the price hike Tuesday.

Liotta also said the county has been installing water meters on construction projects over the last several months.

“That’s been working very well,” he said.