The Grimes Brief
The City of Grimes runs your water and sewer account, and the water is treated at the Grimes Water Treatment Plant, part of Central Iowa Water Works (CIWW). CIWW is the regional authority formed in April 2024 that now treats water for more than 600,000 people in central Iowa. Its site says your local provider, here the city, stays your contact for accounts, bills and service.
The Grimes plant has two parts, a lime softening plant and a reverse osmosis (RO) facility. CIWW is planning an expansion that takes RO capacity from about 5.3 million to 8.5 million gallons a day; WHO 13 reported the cost at $40 million. The 2025 water quality report says Grimes draws from two groundwater sources: the shallow alluvial aquifer (sand and gravel, which the Iowa DNR rates highly susceptible to surface contamination) and the deep Cambrian-Ordovician aquifer (sandstone and dolomite, low susceptibility).
Water is $11.54 per 1,000 gallons and sewer is $10.98 per 1,000 gallons, effective July 1, 2026. Trash rides on the same bill.
Our math: a home using 5,000 gallons in a month pays about $131.72 for water, sewer, trash and the meter charge, plus the $6.38 stormwater fee. Watering the lawn adds up fast at these rates.
Pay by the 20th. Late accounts get a 1.5% penalty plus a $5 fee for the disconnect notice, mailed the first business day after the 20th. Once a disconnect order is issued, add $25, and two disconnect notices in a year means a $100 deposit (refunded after two years of on-time payments).
Fill out the city's Online Request for Service with your address and start date. Accounts are tied to the address, so moving within Grimes means a new account. Renters bring a valid driver's license and a $100 security deposit to City Hall. Leaving town? Use the city's end-service form to set a shut-off date. One thing new owners miss: you own the water and sewer service lines from the street connection to the house, so a broken line is your repair bill.
The 2025 water quality report (dated March 12, 2026) shows no violations for the contaminants it lists: gross alpha at 0.8 pCi/L against a limit of 15, fluoride at 0.15 ppm against 4, and the herbicide dalapon at 0.60 ppb against 200. The system has finished its lead service line inventory; call the water operator at 515-986-3176 to ask about it or about lead testing, and see lead sampling on the Iowa Drinking Water Data Portal.
The report does not list a hardness number, and we could not find one published by the city. The plant uses lime softening and RO, so ask the water operator for a current figure before you set a home softener.
Sign up for the city's WENS alerts (text, voice or email), which cover water main breaks and boil orders. Polk County's Alert Iowa also sends drinking water and utility outage notices. To report a break, a leak between the meter and the street, a sewer backup or water coming up in the street, call 515-985-0667 any time.
The City of Grimes is your water and sewer utility for accounts, billing and service. The water itself is treated at the Grimes Water Treatment Plant, which is part of Central Iowa Water Works, the regional water authority for the Des Moines metro.
Fill out the city's Online Request for Service on grimesiowa.gov, or call City Hall at 515-986-3036. Renters bring a valid driver's license and a 100 dollar deposit to City Hall at 101 NE Harvey Street.
Payment is due by the 20th of each month. After that the city adds a 1.5 percent penalty and a 5 dollar fee for the disconnect notice, which is mailed the first business day after the 20th.
Call the city's 24/7 water and sewer emergency line at 515-985-0667 for a broken main or hydrant, a leaking service line between the meter and the street, a sewer backup, or water coming up in the street. That line cannot help with billing.
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