Protecting Our Future: Understanding Mishawaka’s Water and Sewer Service Territory

Protecting Our Future: Understanding Mishawaka’s Water and Sewer Service Territory

The City of Mishawaka is committed to protecting our citizens, our infrastructure, and the long-term interests of our community. That’s why the Common Council recently passed an updated ordinance affirming and establishing Mishawaka Utilities’ official water and sewer service territory—a move that is both legally necessary and strategically critical to ensuring our continued ability to serve you.

What Is the Water and Sewer Service Territory?

The State of Indiana allows cities like Mishawaka to provide utility service up to four miles outside city limits. For years, Mishawaka Utilities has planned, invested in, and provided water and sewer services to areas near our borders—including portions of Osceola and other unincorporated areas. These are places where our water and sewer lines already exist and where, for decades, our utility has reliably served homes, businesses, and schools.

Why the Updated Ordinance Now?

The original ordinance establishing our service area was passed in 2014. However, Indiana law has since evolved, and in order to maintain our legal standing and comply with updated Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC) rules, our ordinance needed to be updated and refiled. This is about affirming our existing service area, not expanding it, and it allows us to submit a petition to the IURC that ensures Mishawaka remains the lawful provider of service in areas where we’ve already made significant investment.

Why It Matters to You as a Citizen

This isn’t just about utility boundaries—it’s about protecting your interests:

• Safeguarding Investments: Mishawaka Utilities has spent millions of dollars building infrastructure in these areas. Allowing other utilities to swoop in and claim territory we’ve already developed undermines our investment—and ultimately yours as a ratepayer.

• Keeping Rates Low: Mishawaka Utilities operates as a public utility, meaning we don’t profit—we serve. Our rates are carefully set to be fair, stable, and in the public’s interest. If outside entities take over parts of our service territory, costs may rise for everyone.

• Maintaining Service Quality: Mishawaka is known for safe, reliable, and responsive utility service. We are proud of the fact that Mishawaka Utilities customers enjoy some of the lowest utility rates in the region, and we want to keep it that way.

Don’t Believe Everything You Hear

There’s been some noise and misinformation circulating from certain county officials—implying that Mishawaka is somehow overstepping. That simply isn’t true. The City has worked collaboratively for years with the County and nearby towns to provide water and sewer services where they have no infrastructure or capacity to do so themselves. This ordinance honors that history and follows the law—it doesn’t ignore it.

Our goal is, and always has been, to provide reliable, affordable, high-quality utility service to the Mishawaka community and surrounding areas that depend on us. That’s why we acted—and why you can count on us to protect what we’ve built together.

If you have questions about the ordinance or the IURC process, we encourage you to contact Mishawaka Utilities or the Mayor’s Office. We’re here to answer your questions—openly, honestly, and transparently.

This is about Mishawaka. This is about you. And we will always fight to protect your best interests.