St. Clairsville, City Of

• The city's two reservoirs are named, plainly, 'Main' and 'Provident' — and when the main one runs low the city pumps water from Provident through a pipeline all the way across town into the main reservoir.
• Its drought insurance is somebody else's aquifer: the Belmont County Water and Sewer District's well water arrives already treated and goes straight into the city's water towers.
• The backup is turning into a habit — the county connection is normally used about 12 days a year, but in 2025 it ran 115 days and delivered 25.4 million of the roughly 172 million gallons the city put out.
• In 2019, with the reservoir down 8 to 10 feet, the mayor wanted to sell the whole system to Aqua Ohio; council members and two mayoral candidates pushed back, and the city still owns and runs it today.

Source: stclairsville.commariettatimes.comtimesleaderonline.com

• 1796The settlement is established as Newellstown.
• 1802Renamed St. Clairsville in honor of Gen. Arthur St. Clair, governor of the Northwest Territory; it is the seat of Belmont County.
• 2016An October drought forces the city to draw on the Provident Reservoir for a limited time — the only prior use officials could recall before 2019.
• 2019Drought drops the main reservoir 8 to 10 feet, roughly a 50% loss on a reservoir that holds about 27 million gallons and is not much more than 16 feet deep; the city prepares to take its full…
• 2024A statewide drought that began in mid-June pushes the reservoir to the lowest level the service director had seen in ten years (longtime employees recalled lower levels in the late 1990s and early…
• 2025An underdrain failure in the plant's second filter causes treatment-technique violations for inadequate filtration in October and December, with turbidity peaking at 12.83 NTU; the city operates on a…

Source: stclairsville.comtimesleaderonline.commariettatimes.com

How it is treated

The city treats its own surface water from two small local-runoff impoundments: the main reservoir on Reservoir Road and the Provident Reservoir on Vineyard Road, north of the city. Conventional filtration and chlorination; fluoride is present at up to 1.41 ppm and free chlorine averaged 1.38 ppm…

Source: stclairsville.comstclairsville.com

Water pressure

Not published. No distribution pressure figures appear in the city's CCR, rate schedule or department pages.

$16.51 per 1,000 gallons

Typical household bill about $83 a month for water.

Rising-block schedule effective Sept. 5, 2025. Residential/commercial inside the city: $15.58 per 1,000 gallons for the first 2,000; $16.74 for the next 2,000; $17.89 for the next…

Source: stclairsville.com

Source: stclairsville.com

EPA compliance record

Lead at the tap: 90th-percentile result 0 ppb in 2026 (action level 15 ppb).

EPA health-based violations since 2015:

• 2025Total coliform · treatment technique violation · known
• 2024Haloacetic acids (HAA5) · exceeded a maximum contaminant level · measured 0.065 MG/L (limit 0.06 MG/L) · returned to compliance
• 2019Ground Water Rule · treatment technique violation · returned to compliance

EPA's count of 4 includes 1 repeat quarterly violation of the problems listed.

19 violations of any kind logged since 2020, 16 of them paperwork (monitoring, reporting, public notice or consumer report).

Recent and current work

• Belmont County backup water purchase agreement · 2019 · completed
  The city began buying up to its full contractual 325,000 gallons a day from the Belmont County Water and Sewer District during the 2019 drought; by 2024 the…
• Water Distribution Improvement Project (Phase I) · 2025 · under construction
  Referenced in the 2025 CCR: service line materials were verified by visual inspection by James White Construction as the distribution system replacement…
• Ohio EPA-mandated sanitary sewer smoke testing · 2026 · under construction
  Smoke testing of sanitary sewer lines resumed Sept. 8-11, 2026 on Orchard Drive, all of Spring Park, and East Main Street from Orchard Drive to Commons…

Source: stclairsville.comstclairsville.comtimesleaderonline.com

Planned or needed

• Filter No. 2 underdrain replacement and backwash pressure gauges · 2026 · needed
  Corrective action for the 2025 turbidity treatment-technique violation: the filter has been taken out of service, the failed underdrain system will be…
• Water Distribution Improvement Project - Phase II · 2026 · planned
  Ordinance 2026-30 (Aug. 18, 2026) directs the Director of Public Services to solicit competitive bids; no cost is published.
• Efaw Lift Station Project (sanitary sewer) · 2026 · planned
  Ordinance 2026-29 authorizes execution of a notice of award and contract with the James White Construction Company; no contract amount is published on the city…
• Reservoir intake sediment removal · $1 million · 2019 · needed
  The plant's lower intake is plugged under an estimated 10 to 12 feet of sediment and would require a diver; the then-service director called it 'probably a…
• Broader water plant and distribution system upgrades · 2019 · needed
  Ohio EPA mandated upgrades after finding algal blooms capable of producing toxins; the mayor put plant and distribution upgrades 'in the tens of millions of…

Source: stclairsville.comstclairsville.comstclairsville.com

High. The city depends on two small, rain-fed local impoundments with no river or aquifer of its own — the main reservoir holds only about 27 million gallons and is barely 16 feet deep — and it has drawn down hard in the 2016, 2019 and 2024 droughts. Its only fallback is purchased Belmont County groundwater, capped by agreement (325,000…

Source: stclairsville.commariettatimes.comtimesleaderonline.com

Sanitary

The city runs its own combined Water and Wastewater Department under Water Superintendent Mike Reed, treating its wastewater locally, with billing through the Municipal Utilities Office. Sewer rates effective Sept. 5, 2025, residential/commercial inside city: $14.07 per 1,000 gallons for the first 2,000; $14.91 for the next 2,000; $15.76…

Storm

Not published. The city publishes no stormwater utility fee, CSO inventory or flooding information; the Ohio EPA-mandated smoke testing implies an inflow-and-infiltration problem in the separate sanitary system, but no storm sewer detail is available.

Source: stclairsville.comstclairsville.comstclairsville.com

Compiled from the utility's own reports and public records, then independently re-checked against primary sources.