WATER DISTRICT freezes rates because of pandemic.

The pandemic hasn’t hurt the district’s water sales yet, staff told the board.

FAYETTEVILLE — Beaver Water District won’t raise water rates for the next fiscal year because of the expected impact of the covid-19 pandemic on the city water departments it serves, the district’s board decided Thursday.

Some city residents’ ability to pay their water bills will suffer as the pandemic and the job loss it causes goes on, staff told the board. Cities will defer at least some water bills and continue service as people remain unemployed, they said.

Also, a major disease outbreak at a food processing plant, for instance, could close a major water user, staff said. A single such closing would significantly reduce overall demand for water.

The board’s decision means the water rates won’t increase before the end of the district’s fiscal year in October 2021. The district plans a 3-cent per 1,000 gallon increase from the current rate of $1.38 sometime after that date.

The pandemic hasn’t hurt the district’s water sales yet, staff told the board. Water consumption is up 3.4% so far this year, district figures show.

“The weather has had a greater impact,” with all the recent rain reducing demand for activities such as watering lawns, Lane Crider, district chief executive officer, told the board.

The water district is a nonprofit regional supplier of drinking water. The district provides water to the region’s four largest cities and, through them, to more than 358,000 customers in other communities, district figures show. The district provides as much as 90 million gallons of water a day at peak times during the summer, with a daily average demand of 55 million gallons a day.

Bentonville, Rogers, Springdale and Fayetteville each connect their water systems directly to the district’s treatment plant east of Lowell. The district draws its water supply from Beaver Lake in eastern Benton and northern Washington counties.