As Washington state continues with social distancing efforts, we continue to provide critical services to North City Water District customers 24×7—despite limited staffing and the same distancing measures.

As of March 18, 2020, Governor Inslee issued Proclamation 20-23, pertaining to Utility Ratepayer Assistance and Preservation of Essential Services. North City Water District is committed to keeping our customers connected to essential services during the COVID-19 pandemic emergency. If you are experiencing hardship as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, you may be eligible for support, including long-term payment arrangements or bill assistance. This Proclamation does not relieve customers from the obligation to pay for utility services.

As a provider of an essential service, we are working to ensure we are here for our customers, our community, and our employees as coronavirus impacts the region. Here’s how we continue to provide essential water service for public health, safety, and the local economy:

• Work with customers who contact us to make payment arrangements due to financial difficulties related to COVID-19. Should you find yourself in this situation, we encourage you to call our customer service staff at 206.362.8100 and we’ll help you come up with a plan that prevents you from falling behind.
• Keep operations staff on duty to help with leaks, repairs, and other service requests; all wearing masks and abiding by social distancing.
• Limit maintenance activities to ensure our systems continue to operate effectively, including but not limited to inspections of pumps, reservoirs, pressure reducing stations, hydrants and valves.
• Continue monitoring, and sampling if necessary, of the water quality throughout our system.
• Follow strict distancing when performing costruction inspections of our new maintenance building.
• Provide limited customer service staff in the office to answer phones, address questions, and manage billing, accounts payable, and payroll.
• Conduct our Commissioners meetings via conference call for essential business activities, on our regularly scheduled meeting dates/times.
• Support staff working from home on ongoing administrative tasks.

Here’s what we are NOT doing:

• Shutting our customers’ water off for non-payment.
• Applying liens for overdue accounts.
• Inspecting non-essential developer projects.
• Providing a public meeting space for non-profits.
• Providing public access to our administrative offices.

Should you have any questions at all, we welcome you to give us a call at 206.362.8100!