Hamilton Public Water System

• Hamilton's tap water won gold for Best Municipal Water at the 25th anniversary Berkeley Springs International Water Tasting, the competition's silver-jubilee year.
• Unlike most U.S. utilities, Hamilton disinfects with chlorine dioxide instead of chlorine — a choice locals credit for the water's mild flavor.
• The city has run its own waterworks since 1884, pulling from 21 wells in the Great Miami Buried Valley Aquifer through 289 miles of water main to about 25,000 customers.
• Hamilton's wastewater plant returns about 8.5 million gallons a day to the Great Miami River and can swallow up to 48 million gallons on a severe storm day.

• 1884Hamilton has owned and operated its own municipal water utility continuously since 1884, drawing on the Great Miami Buried Valley Aquifer.
• 2015Hamilton's tap water took the gold medal for Best Municipal Water at the 25th anniversary Berkeley Springs International Water Tasting in West Virginia.
• 2020sOhio EPA awarded Hamilton a $500,000 lead service line replacement grant, matched by $500,000 in city funds, targeting about 100 properties in the 45011 and 45015 ZIP codes.

How it is treated

Groundwater from 21 wells in the Great Miami Buried Valley Aquifer feeds two lime-softening plants: the South WTP (40 MGD, 16 production wells in Fairfield) and the North WTP (6 MGD, 5 on-site wells). Water is softened, stabilized, filtered, disinfected with chlorine dioxide rather than chlorine…

Water pressure

not published — the city publishes plant capacities (40 MGD South, 6 MGD North) and 289 miles of water main, but no system-wide average psi figure in materials reviewed.

Not substantiated. The city's utilities-rates page states rates combine fixed and usage-based charges but publishes no per-ccf or per-1,000-gallon figure; the schedule lives in…

EPA compliance record

Lead at the tap: 90th-percentile result 2 ppb in 2024 (action level 15 ppb).

EPA record: no health-based violations since 2015.

2 violations of any kind logged since 2020, 2 of them paperwork (monitoring, reporting, public notice or consumer report).

Recent and current work

• Lead service line replacement program · $1 million · under construction
  $500,000 Ohio EPA grant covers the private-side line (curb stop to building); $500,000 city match covers the public right-of-way portion. ~100 properties.
• Lead service line replacement during water main renewal · under construction
  City replaces known city-owned lead lines whenever it replaces the connecting water main, and supplies filter pitchers to affected customers.

Planned or needed

• Continued lead service line inventory and replacement · planned
  City maintains an interactive lead service line map, updated as data improves. Private-side replacement cost remains the owner's responsibility.

Low relative stress: the Great Miami Buried Valley Aquifer is a large, well-recharged groundwater source and the system averages 18.5 MGD against 46 MGD of combined plant capacity. The vulnerability named in city sources is legacy lead service lines in older neighborhoods, not source-water scarcity.

Sanitary

Hamilton runs its own Water Reclamation Facility, returning an average of 8.5 million gallons per day of treated water to the Great Miami River and able to accept up to 48 MGD during severe storms, plus about six dry tons of solids daily for reuse. The Water Reclamation Division also operates a satellite wastewater plant and seven…

Storm

The city operates one storm water pump station alongside its wastewater system. No dedicated citywide stormwater utility fee was found in the sources reviewed.

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