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OTTUMWA, IOWA -- In 1999, Wapello County joined Regional Utility Service Systems or RUSS.

The point of RUSS is to put sewers into unincorporated towns around the region.

However, in the past 13 years that Wapello County has been a member, the county has not come up with any projects for RUSS to be involved in.

The county has used other redundancies to do exactly what RUSS can do. And so it has been the county’s desire to withdraw from the program for the last few years.

The problem is that there was no exit strategy for counties to withdraw from the program when it was formed.

“So that's nothing new and in consequence of all this, our unpaid dues to RUSS continue to build. So you know they look at it as you guys owe us $14,000, we look at it as no we don't owe you a penny, we told you three years we're not being a part of this,” said Greg Kenning, Wapello County Supervisor.

At the Wapello County Supervisors meeting on Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors accepted a letter from RUSS’ attorney and agreed to enter into arbitration.