Utilities Department

The City of Madison utilities department contains four departments: the water department, the wastewater department, the storm water department and the utility billing office.

Water

The Madison water department is responsible for providing water to approximately 6300 customers in the City of Madison and provides water to the Canaan water department, the Dupont water department and the Ryker’s Ridge water department.  

The Madison Water System consists of seven wells: five located at the west end of downtown and two located at the east end of downtown. There are three elevated water storage tanks: two on the hilltop and one at the top of Hanover hill near the intersection of 56/62. The department also has three in-ground storage tanks: one is located at the east end of Madison behind the Hillside Inn and the other two are located near the northern end of the Madison State Hospital property.

Wastewater

The wastewater system can be broken down into two segments: the wastewater plant and the collections system.

1. Wastewater Plant- Located at the southwestern end of downtown Madison, this plant is a Class III plant rated to process 3.6 MGD. The city averages about 2 MGD during normal conditions. Once the wastewater is processed, it is discharged into the Ohio River.
2. Collections System – The collection system is made up of lift stations, manholes, and sewer mains located throughout the city. The manholes are connected via a series of sewer mains of various sizes. The collection system does just what it says, it collects the sewage throughout the city and delivers it to the plant to be treated and disinfected before being returned to the Ohio River.

Storm Water

Madison is an MS4 Community as designated by IDEM.  MS4 stands for Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System and Madison became part of the State MS4 program in 1999 when the state of Indiana deemed communities larger than 10,000 would be regulated.  Originally, the program consisted of six minimum control measures which include:

1. Public Outreach & Education
2. Public Participation & Involvement
3. Illicit Discharge Detection & Elimination 
4. Construction Site Runoff Management
5. Post-Construction Storm Water Management 
6. Municipal Operations & Good Housekeeping

To aid in keeping the city’s various storm water activities and requirements cost-effective, the City of Madison partners with several other communities: Jeffersonville, Sellersburg, Clarksville, New Albany, Floyd & Clark Counties.

Billing Office

The billing office is responsible for gathering the data used (with the help of the water meter readers from the water department) to create and distribute the water/sewer bills. This office is also responsible for taking all the phone calls for service being turned on or off as well as creating work orders for problems that need to be addressed that deal with issues in the water, sewer or stormwater departments.  These issues are generally either reported by the public or by one of the city workers.