Beaver Water District sells water at the wholesale rate of $1.54/1000 gallons of water (as of Oct. 1, 2023). That’s a cost of about 1/10th of a cent per gallon of water. Clean, treated, ready-to-drink tap water is sold to four customer cities — Fayetteville, Springdale, Rogers and Bentonville — which supply this water to more than 370,000 customers. In 1973, the average daily demand for water from the District’s four wholesale customer cities was about 15 million gallons per day (mgd). Today, the average daily demand is 65 mgd per day and a peak day in the summer could reach over 90 mgd. The daily pumping capacity at Beaver Water District’s intake at Beaver Lake is 150 mgd. The daily water treatment capacity is 140 mgd.
The population of Northwest Arkansas has grown significantly during the past 60 years. For example, in 1960 there were fewer than 100,000 people living in Washington and Benton counties. Today, the estimated combined population of the Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers Metropolitan Statistical Area (Northwest Arkansas) exceeds 550,000 residents.
Maximum Daily Demand is NOT the sum of the individual Maximum Daily Demands. The individual Maximum Daily Demand for each city does not necessarily occur on the same day of the month.
**Demand is expressed in millions of gallons per day (mgd) and represents water sold.**