Madeira’s Water Transition

I. Where this stands

A judge is deciding what two words mean

Council voted to move the east side of Madeira from Indian Hill Water Works to Greater Cincinnati Water Works. The city gave formal notice on November 24, 2025, which started a two year transition window that runs to November 2027.

Indian Hill says we are not allowed to leave. Madeira filed suit in Hamilton County Common Pleas on February 6, 2026. Indian Hill answered and counterclaimed on March 12, 2026. The case is City of Madeira v. City of the Village of Indian Hill, No. A2600716, before Judge Christian A. Jenkins (Indian Hill’s answer and counterclaim). In July 2026 both sides argued the central question. He took it under advisement and said he would issue a written opinion. As of this update he has not.

The question is narrow and it matters more than anything else on this page. Our contract lets either side cancel for reasonable cause on two years notice. Madeira says we had reasonable cause. Indian Hill says that phrase only applies if the other side broke the contract first, and we say nobody did. One judge is now deciding which reading is right.

I think our reading is the better one, and I will tell you why below. I am not going to tell you the answer is obvious, because it is in front of a court and it has not been decided.

II. Why we have two providers

A 1948 court case split the map

In the early twentieth century Cincinnati sold water beyond its own borders. In 1948 the Ohio Supreme Court held in State ex rel. Indian Hill Acres, Inc. v. Kellogg that Cincinnati could not be forced to sell its surplus water to people outside the city, and that the city council alone decides that policy (149 Ohio St. 461, 1948).

Indian Hill responded by building its own system. Its historical society dates the decision to build to a resolution passed in August of that same year (Indian Hill Historical Society).

Madeira grew into the space between the two systems. The result is the map we still have: Greater Cincinnati Water Works serves the west side, Indian Hill Water Works serves the east side, and the dividing line is an accident of history rather than a decision anyone made about what is best for Madeira.

One detail from that history drives most of the money argument. In the Indian Hill service area, Madeira owns the water mains. That is unusual. In almost every arrangement like this, the water utility owns the pipe it delivers through, and its rates pay to replace it.

III. What the contract says

One sentence decides this

Madeira and Indian Hill signed a water service contract dated April 30, 2012, and amended it in 2023. Section 11 says the agreement continues for twenty years, and then says that either party may cancel it for reasonable cause upon two years written notice. The 2023 amendment repeats the same provision (Complaint, paragraphs 7 to 10 · the contract and amendment).

Here is the whole disagreement. Madeira reads that sentence the way it is written: give two years notice, have a reasonable cause, and you may cancel. Indian Hill says the agreements bar termination unless the other party defaults and the terminating party has reasonable cause, reading section 11 together with a recital earlier in the contract. It argues that Ohio courts have refused to treat a business decision as sufficient cause where an agreement allows termination only for cause (Answer and counterclaim, paragraphs 27 and 28).

If Madeira is right, the notice we gave in November 2025 was valid and the transition proceeds. If Indian Hill is right, the notice was a breach and Madeira may owe money.

My own view is that a cancellation clause which required the other side to breach first would be a strange way to write a contract, because a party can already walk away from an agreement the other side has broken. Reading it Indian Hill's way makes the phrase do no work. But I am a council member, not the judge, and this is exactly the argument that is under advisement.

IV. Why Council voted to change

Four reasons, in the order they weighed on me

You are paying for the same pipe twice

Madeira households do not pay the Indian Hill rate. They pay a multiple of it. The 2012 contract set Madeira’s rate at 1.25 times what an Indian Hill customer pays. The 2023 amendment raised it to 1.41 times, because the original 25 percent was not covering the volume of pipe Madeira needed to replace. Indian Hill collects that extra and passes it back to Madeira to fund replacement of Madeira’s own mains (Answer and counterclaim, paragraphs 23 and 26).

That description is not mine. It is Indian Hill’s own, from its court filing. And it is the problem stated precisely. The base rate that every Indian Hill customer pays is built to cover the system, including replacing pipe. Madeira households pay that base rate too, and then pay another 41 percent on top for the pipe Madeira already owns.

The system is near its limits

Start with storage. Indian Hill runs one water tower. It holds 500,000 gallons, but only about 70,000 of those, roughly 14 percent, are usable, because the water level has to stay inside a three foot band to keep the system pressurized. Indian Hill’s own advisory committee packet says that in summer the effective storage lasts about fifteen minutes before it has to be refilled by pumping, and that pumping depends on electricity in a way that gravity does not (Village Advisory Committee packet, March 25, 2025, page 19).

Supply is tight as well. The treatment plant is approved for 6 million gallons a day. Average demand runs about 2.2 million, but summer pumping runs between 3 and 5 million gallons a day, and new construction has brought a lot of irrigation with it (Village Advisory Committee informational packet, pages 4 and 5).

In the 2024 drought, which Indian Hill describes as the worst in the region’s recorded history, it had to buy water from Greater Cincinnati Water Works to get through the summer. Its own materials note that Cincinnati staff first had to check their own supply and tower levels before agreeing to provide it (Village Advisory Committee packet, March 25, 2025, page 25).

A treatment bill is coming that we would help pay

New federal limits on PFAS, the class of compounds usually called forever chemicals, will require treatment that Indian Hill does not currently have. Indian Hill first approached Madeira about a thirty year extension in order to finance that plant. Greater Cincinnati Water Works has already built the treatment it needs.

Rate structure

Indian Hill bills on a flat structure with a minimum. Greater Cincinnati Water Works bills on tiers, which is better for a household of one or two and for most small businesses. Both providers offered to take over Madeira's mains and the debt on them.

V. The water itself

Both are safe today. They are not equally prepared.

I want to be careful here, because this is where the argument gets overheated in both directions. Both systems meet federal and state drinking water standards. Nobody is being poisoned. The difference is in the source, the treatment, and what each system is built to handle next.

Where the water comes from

Indian Hill draws from the Little Miami Buried Valley Aquifer, which is a sole source aquifer. Greater Cincinnati Water Works draws from the Ohio River and the Great Miami Aquifer, so it is not dependent on one source.

How it is treated

The Greater Cincinnati Water Works treatment plant uses granular activated carbon and ultraviolet disinfection (GCWW water quality reports). Granular activated carbon is the technology regulators point to for removing the kinds of chemicals that show up in spills, and it is also the main tool for PFAS. Indian Hill does not currently use it.

The Ohio River question

People ask me about the river, and it is a fair question. The answer is that a river intake can be closed and an aquifer cannot. Greater Cincinnati Water Works participates in a monitoring network run by the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission that gives advance warning of a contaminant moving downstream (ORSANCO organics detection system). After the 2023 East Palestine derailment the utility closed its intakes and ran on stored water until the plume passed. An aquifer has no equivalent move. Once something reaches the groundwater you are treating it, not avoiding it.

Lead

Greater Cincinnati Water Works runs a lead service line replacement program and has committed to replacing lead lines in Madeira (GCWW lead program).

Sewer does not change

Sewer service is the Metropolitan Sewer District either way, at the same rates, billed through your water bill. Nothing about this decision touches it.

VI. The dispute

What the fight is actually about

Indian Hill has asked Madeira to pay to leave. The number moved. An early demand was around four million dollars. On December 17, 2025 Indian Hill's law director sent a demand letter citing engineering work by Burgess & Niple and asserting that fixing fire flow effects would cost at least thirteen million dollars, and that those costs were solely Madeira's responsibility (Complaint, paragraphs 19 to 21).

Madeira's position is that those reports do not support a fixed damage figure. The complaint points out that the January 2025 report was prepared for Indian Hill's own master planning, that the August 2025 report was prepared at the direction of counsel after the dispute began, that the first report acknowledged it made assumptions about which hydrants matched its field tests, and that the two reports treat the same mains differently (Complaint, paragraphs 34 to 44).

The underlying concern is that a utility with capital work it already needed is describing that work as damage caused by Madeira.

The capital work was already coming

Indian Hill’s own planning materials put the PFAS removal system at 18 to 23 million dollars and a new water tower at 6 to 8 million (Village Advisory Committee informational packet). Its 2025 general plan for the Ohio EPA prices the option of keeping the treatment plant at about 47 million dollars, against roughly 27 million to interconnect with Cincinnati and retire the plant (General plan, alternatives cost summary).

Two things follow from those numbers. The first is that a thirteen million dollar demand is a fraction of a capital program Indian Hill faces either way. The second is that the same planning packet lists, as a benefit of not serving Madeira, the possibility of reducing the plant’s rated capacity and building a smaller PFAS facility. On their own analysis, Madeira leaving makes that project cheaper.

The timing matters too. In August 2023 the Village’s council discussed PFAS and water tower costs it put at at least ten million dollars, said the rate could not be raised enough to carry a bond, and a member asked a question she said had been under consideration for several years, which was whether the Village should continue operating a water works at all (Village council packet, August 21, 2023). Two months later the Village passed the ordinance extending its agreement with Madeira for another twenty years.

That conversation happened eighteen months before Madeira announced anything. It also bears on the question in front of the court. Indian Hill argues Madeira had no reasonable cause and is simply making a business decision. Its own council was openly weighing whether the system was sustainable.

The records

To separate two water systems safely you need the engineering data for both. On April 23, 2025 Madeira made a public records request to Indian Hill covering seven categories, limited to 2012 forward. On May 13, 2025 Indian Hill produced three categories and denied four as overly broad. The denied categories included PFAS testing and EPA compliance, fire district water supply needs, and fire flow conditions (Complaint, paragraphs 69 to 72).

Those are the same subjects Indian Hill later relied on to claim the system would be harmed and that Madeira owes thirteen million dollars. That is the part I find hardest to look past. You cannot tell a neighbor that separation will damage your fire protection and also decline to show them the fire flow records.

What Madeira asked the court for

A declaration that the termination was permitted by the plain language of the agreements, a ruling that Indian Hill violated Ohio's public records law, and an order to comply. The suit is about getting the data and settling the contract question. It does not ask for the transition to be sped up.

What Indian Hill says

Indian Hill says the termination is a breach of a twenty year extension signed in October 2023, that it is owed revenue it expected through 2043, that separation will require system work on its side, and that Madeira's plans threaten fire flows. Its counterclaim asks the court to declare the termination invalid and to award damages. You should read their side in their own words rather than mine (Village of Indian Hill, Madeira lawsuit update).

Fire protection is the one claim I will not wave off, because it is the one that could actually hurt someone. It is also the reason the records matter. Madeira's position is not that fire flow is unimportant. It is that we cannot plan around a number we are not allowed to see.

VII. What happens next

The timeline

Until the court rules, the transition planning continues and so does the disagreement about what it will cost and who pays. Your water does not change today, your bill does not change today, and your sewer service is unaffected throughout.

I will update this page when the opinion issues. If you find something here that is wrong, email me and I will correct it.

VIII. The documents

Read them yourself

Everything above comes from these. The first three are hosted here so the links do not rot.

Who wrote this

Why I spent this long on water

I am Logan Junger, one of your council members. I wrote this the same way I wrote the charter page: read the documents, link every claim, and let you check my work.

Most of my time on Council has gone to this water question. It is not a glamorous subject. It is a large recurring bill that every household on the east side pays, attached to infrastructure the city owns and a system that is running close to its limits. That combination is worth the hours.

This page is my own work and my own money. It is not a city publication and it does not speak for anyone else on Council. If I have something wrong, tell me and I will fix it here.