Water system
Leetonia Village
EPA ID OH1501412 · Columbiana County · 1,833 people served · owned by a local government
Leetonia Village buys its water from Salem City.
The system's record
- Water bodies
- East Cold Run Reservoir (Salem City Lake), Spring Valley Reservoir, Cold Run Creek
- Raw intakes
- Salem Spring Valley Reserv
Salem Cold Run Creek
Salem Salem Reservoir Intak - Active wells
- 4
- Serves
- 16,850 people · Columbiana County
- EPA ID
- OH1502011
About this area's water Salem City
Did you know
- Salem blends surface water from two on-stream reservoirs with groundwater from its wells specifically to hold disinfection by-product levels down.
- A raw-water pump installed at the Cold Run Creek station in 1982 was still doing duty more than three decades later, repaired once in 2000.
- The utilities commission once considered ceramic-coating the pump impellers just to squeeze more life out of the aging equipment.
- Some of Salem's water mains are late-1800s pipe — as the distribution foreman put it in 2024, 'it's just old pipe.' Replacing the worst of it would cost about $110 million, so the city patches as it goes.
- To fight algae, Salem has floated solar-powered SolarBee mixers on its reservoirs and considered stocking white amurs — herbivorous fish hired to eat the problem.
History6
- 1982A raw-water pump was installed at the Cold Run Creek pump station; it was repaired in 2000 and by 2016 needed replacement, with a bowl assembly estimated at $24,000.
- 2016Utilities Commission accepted a $6,760 proposal from Layne Well Driller to drill, sample and convert an exploratory well east of the Cold Run Creek pump station into a monitoring well with a locking…
- 2016Officials cited Ohio EPA scrutiny of disinfection by-products in the reservoir surface water as the reason to lean more on the city's wells, noting subsurface water helps hold by-product levels down.
- 2021Utilities Commission and Council approved a multi-year water rate overhaul: the minimum rose $9 to $19.30 for the first 200 cubic feet in January 2022, with 5.5% usage-rate increases in 2022 through…
- 2022A consent decree between Salem and the EPA completed its 30-day comment period without objection, concluding litigation against the city as of November 2022.
- 2024Summer water line breaks on aging mains — 'it's just old pipe, it's late 1800s pipe there' — led the commission to price full replacement of the oldest lines at roughly $110 million and adopt a…
Source: morningjournalnews.commorningjournalnews.comsalemnews.net
Treatment & pressure
How it is treated
Raw water is a blend of surface water impounded in two on-stream reservoirs on Cold Run Creek — East Cold Run Reservoir (Salem City Lake) and Spring Valley Reservoir — together with groundwater from the city's wells, blended in part to keep disinfection by-product levels down. The city has also…
Source: morningjournalnews.commorningjournalnews.com
Water pressure
Not published in any reachable source.
What it costs
Salem bills in hundreds of cubic feet (CCF); 1 ccf = 748 gallons, so any per-1,000-gallon figure must divide by 0.748. Schedule: before 2022 the in-city minimum was…
Source: morningjournalnews.commorningjournalnews.comsalemnews.net
Water quality & impurities
EPA compliance record · Leetonia Village
Lead at the tap: 90th-percentile result 16.4 ppb in 2025 (action level 15 ppb).
EPA record: no health-based violations since 2015.
2 violations of any kind logged since 2020: 2 for a report, record or notice that was missing, late or incomplete (the yearly water quality report, a public notice, lead line records).
EPA compliance record · Salem City (treats the water)
Lead at the tap: 90th-percentile result 9.4 ppb in 2025 (action level 15 ppb).
EPA record: no health-based violations since 2015.
2 violations of any kind logged since 2020: 1 for required testing that was missed or reported late; 1 for a report, record or notice that was missing, late or incomplete (the yearly water quality report, a public notice, lead line records).
Projects & plans11
Recent and current work
- Water treatment plant improvements, Phase One · $4.5 million · 2022 · under construction
Total estimated cost approximately $4.5 million. Contractor A.P. O'horo was executing the work as of October 2024, when a design change was pending to enlarge… - Governor's Office of Appalachia grant for water plant work · $221,094 · 2022 · completed
Grant secured by the Salem Utilities Commission; the balance of the plant program is funded through an Ohio EPA Drinking Water Assistance Fund loan of up to… - East Cold Run Reservoir rip-rap project · $500,000 · 2022 · under construction
Originally estimated at $500,000, the cost roughly doubled; a $236,000 Governor's Office of Appalachia grant covers part, with the remainder from department… - SolarBee installation in reservoirs · 2022 · planned
Three units in East Cold Run Reservoir and two in Spring Valley Reservoir, pending final Ohio EPA engineer review, to control algae. No cost published. - Cold Run Creek exploratory/monitoring well conversion · $6,760 · 2016
Layne Well Driller contract accepted to drill, sample and convert the well; we found no public record of completion. - Wastewater treatment plant anaerobic digester cleaning, Phase Three · $250,000 · 2024 · completed
Estimated at $75,000 but came in near $250,000 — an extra $175,000 — because the digester held about three times more material than engineers anticipated. - Wastewater treatment plant digester lids and controls building · 2024 · under construction
Primary lid being welded in place and secondary lid painted and ready as of October 2024; a new control system building was under construction with ventilation… - Highland Avenue water tank painting · 2016
Underway as of a 2016 news report; no completion or cost confirmed.
Source: morningjournalnews.commorningjournalnews.comsalemnews.net
Planned or needed
- New water source search · proposed
The city has periodically studied alternative or supplemental sources, citing reservoir capacity and water-quality (algae and disinfection by-product)… - Replacement of oldest water mains · $110 million · 2024 · needed
The utilities department priced full replacement of its oldest, most break-prone lines — many over 100 years old, some dating to the late 1800s — at roughly… - Algae control measures (white amurs, additional SolarBee units) · proposed
Management proposed stocking white amurs (herbivorous fish) and acquiring more SolarBee solar-powered pump units to control reservoir algae. No cost published.
Supply stress
Salem's supply leans on two relatively small on-stream reservoirs subject to algae blooms and disinfection by-product formation, which has pushed the utility to blend in groundwater and to repeatedly study new sources. In August 2024 the city lake stood about 1 foot 10 inches below normal; East Cold Run Reservoir remained clear but…
Source: salemnews.netmorningjournalnews.commorningjournalnews.com
Sewers
Sanitary
Salem operates its own wastewater treatment plant, which underwent Phase IA improvements around 2016 and, through 2024, anaerobic digester cleaning and rehabilitation (Phase Three digester cleaning ran to roughly $250,000 against a $75,000 estimate) plus new digester lids and a control system building. A consent decree between the city…
Storm
We found no separate stormwater utility or fee for Salem.
Sourcesverified
Compiled from the utility's own reports and public records, then independently re-checked against primary sources.
Present in 1 ZIP code
Serves
Main water supplier in 1 ZIP code
- 44431 · Leetonia38% of residents
Population-weighted resident shares; a ZIP code can have more than one system on record. Recomputed from each ZIP's own system list, not from the map's cached footprint.
Buys from · Sells to
Leetonia Village buys its water from Salem City.
No other system is on record buying water from Leetonia Village.
What the records show about Leetonia Village
Who runs it
EPA's record describes Leetonia Village as owned by a local government. It has 810 service connections and serves 1,833 people.
EPA classes it as a community water system, one that serves the same residents all year.
Its office telephone on EPA's record is 330-457-7106.
Source: EPA Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS), water system record.
How the water is treated
Leetonia Village buys water that Salem City treats first, so the steps that count are the seller's. EPA's treatment table registers these steps for Salem City: corrosion control, coagulation and settling, chlorine disinfection, iron and manganese removal, fluoridation, powdered activated carbon, and sand or media filtration.
The list is what each system registered with EPA for treatment plants EPA still shows as active, and it can lag a plant upgrade.
Source: EPA Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS) treatment table (EPA Envirofacts, pulled September 2026).
Violations
EPA's record shows no health-based violations for Leetonia Village since 2015.
EPA logs 2 violations of any kind since 2020: 2 for a report, record or notice that was missing, late or incomplete (the yearly water quality report, a public notice, lead line records).
Source: EPA Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS) violation records: health-based violations with compliance periods beginning in 2015 or later, all violations from 2020 or later (EPA Envirofacts, pulled September 2026).
Lead and copper at the tap
In the sampling period ending December 2025, the 90th-percentile lead result at Leetonia Village was 16.4 ppb, above the 15 ppb action level.
EPA has 9 sampling periods on file for Leetonia Village since 2016, the first ending in 2016; 1 of the 9 periods went above 15 ppb, and 2 above 10 ppb.
Every water system has to inventory its service lines, the pipes from the main to each building. In the inventory Leetonia Village sent EPA, 917 lines are counted.
H2Ohio paid the Rural Community Assistance Partnership to help this small system build its lead service line inventory (Ohio EPA).
| Material | Lines |
|---|---|
| Lead | 53 |
| Galvanized, needing replacement | 88 |
| Unknown material | 252 |
| Not lead | 524 |
| All lines | 917 |
Systems sample taps in the homes most likely to have lead pipes or solder. The 90th-percentile result is the level nine in ten of the sampled homes were at or below. Lead comes mostly from service lines and house plumbing, not the source water, so a low result for the system does not clear an old house.
EPA's dashboard status for this inventory: reported all required service line types.
Source: EPA Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS) lead and copper 90th-percentile results (EPA Envirofacts), sampling periods ending 2016 or later; EPA's service line inventory dashboard, Ohio's 2026 Q2 submission.
PFAS
The water Leetonia Village buys is treated by Salem City, so the results below are Salem City's.
EPA's fifth national round of testing (UCMR 5) took 4 samples of the water entering the pipes of Salem City in 2023 to 2024 and measured 29 PFAS. No PFAS was detected, PFOA and PFOS (federal limit 4 ng/L each) among them.
Ohio EPA's own statewide sampling tested 1 plant of Salem City (latest sample August 2020). Not one of the six PFAS tested (PFOA, PFOS, PFHxS, PFNA, GenX and PFBS) was detected.
Ohio EPA's current sampling status map lists 1 plant of Salem City as sampled, most recently March 2024.
PFAS are the 'forever chemicals' from firefighting foam, plating shops and non-stick coatings. Results are for water leaving the plant, not your tap.
Source: EPA UCMR 5 occurrence data (final release, August 2026); Ohio EPA statewide PFAS sampling, 2019 to 2021, and its sampling status map.
Disinfection byproducts
Chlorine that disinfects water also reacts with organic matter to form byproducts. Two groups have federal limits: total trihalomethanes (TTHM, 80 µg/L) and five haloacetic acids (HAA5, 60 µg/L), judged on running yearly averages at each sampling site.
For TTHM, the average of Leetonia Village's samples in 2019, the last year it was sampled, was 22 µg/L. The worst yearly average was 99.5 µg/L and the highest single sample was 162 µg/L, from 58 samples taken from 2012 to 2019. A yearly average over 80 is not itself a violation, because compliance is judged site by site.
For HAA5, the average in the last year sampled was 18.7 µg/L. The worst yearly average was 57.2 µg/L and the highest single sample was 81 µg/L, from 58 samples.
| Byproduct | Limit | Latest yearly average | Worst yearly average | Highest sample | Samples |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TTHM | 80 µg/L | 22 µg/L (2019) | 99.5 µg/L | 162 µg/L | 58 |
| HAA5 | 60 µg/L | 18.7 µg/L | 57.2 µg/L | 81 µg/L | 58 |
A yearly average of 0 means nothing was detected in that year's samples. EPA's file stops at 2019; Ohio EPA's Drinking Water Watch has newer results.
Source: EPA Six-Year Review 4 compliance monitoring data, 2012 to 2019, distribution-system samples (non-detects counted as zero).
Nitrate, arsenic and radioactivity
The water Leetonia Village buys is treated by Salem City, so the results below are Salem City's.
Nitrate: the highest of 96 samples was 2.7 mg/L (as nitrogen) in 2013; in 2019, the last year sampled, the highest was 1.33 mg/L. No sample was over the limit of 10 mg/L. Nitrate above 10 is unsafe for infants.
Arsenic was not detected in 8 samples (limit 10 µg/L).
| Contaminant | Samples | Highest result | Limit | Samples over limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nitrate (as nitrogen) | 96 | 2.7 mg/L | 10 mg/L | 0 |
| Arsenic | 8 | not detected | 10 µg/L | 0 |
Measured in finished water: at the plant's entry points and in the distribution system; raw well and intake samples are left out. Non-detects count as zero.
Source: EPA Six-Year Review 4 compliance monitoring data, 2012 to 2019, finished water of Salem City.
Solvents and fuels
The water Leetonia Village buys is treated by Salem City, so the results below are Salem City's.
EPA's file holds results for all six solvent and fuel compounds it checked. Benzene, carbon tetrachloride, 1,2-dichloroethane, trichloroethylene, tetrachloroethylene, and vinyl chloride were not detected in 12 samples each.
| Compound | Limit | Samples | Detected in | Highest result | Samples over limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Benzene | 5 µg/L | 12 | 0 of 12 | not detected | 0 |
| Carbon tetrachloride | 5 µg/L | 12 | 0 of 12 | not detected | 0 |
| 1,2-dichloroethane | 5 µg/L | 12 | 0 of 12 | not detected | 0 |
| Trichloroethylene (TCE) | 5 µg/L | 12 | 0 of 12 | not detected | 0 |
| Tetrachloroethylene (PCE) | 5 µg/L | 12 | 0 of 12 | not detected | 0 |
| Vinyl chloride | 2 µg/L | 12 | 0 of 12 | not detected | 0 |
"Not detected" means the lab's result was below what its method can measure, not that the compound is absent. Non-detects count as zero in the highest-result column.
Source: EPA Six-Year Review 4 compliance monitoring data, 2012 to 2019, finished water of Salem City.
Farm chemicals and metals
The water Leetonia Village buys is treated by Salem City, so the results below are Salem City's.
EPA's file holds results for 8 of the nine herbicides and metals it checked. Detected: barium in 6 of 8 samples, highest 19 µg/L (limit 2,000). Not detected: atrazine in 12 samples, alachlor in 12 samples, chromium in 8 samples, cadmium in 8 samples, mercury in 8 samples, selenium in 8 samples, thallium in 8 samples.
| Substance | Kind | Limit | Samples | Detected in | Highest result | Samples over limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atrazine | Farm chemical | 3 µg/L | 12 | 0 of 12 | not detected | 0 |
| Alachlor | Farm chemical | 2 µg/L | 12 | 0 of 12 | not detected | 0 |
| Chromium | Metal | 100 µg/L | 8 | 0 of 8 | not detected | 0 |
| Cadmium | Metal | 5 µg/L | 8 | 0 of 8 | not detected | 0 |
| Barium | Metal | 2,000 µg/L | 8 | 6 of 8 | 19 µg/L | 0 |
| Mercury | Metal | 2 µg/L | 8 | 0 of 8 | not detected | 0 |
| Selenium | Metal | 50 µg/L | 8 | 0 of 8 | not detected | 0 |
| Thallium | Metal | 2 µg/L | 8 | 0 of 8 | not detected | 0 |
Non-detects count as zero in the highest-result column.
Source: EPA Six-Year Review 4 compliance monitoring data, 2012 to 2019, finished water of Salem City.
Bacteria in the pipes
From 2012 to 2019, 0 of 279 routine total coliform samples taken in the distribution system at Leetonia Village tested positive (0%); in 2019, the last year on file, 0 of 24 did.
A positive coliform test is a warning sign, not a violation by itself. E. coli is a sign that human or animal waste may have reached the water. Coliform counts are routine samples only; E. coli counts include repeat samples.
Source: EPA Six-Year Review 4 compliance monitoring data, 2012 to 2019, distribution-system presence/absence tests for total coliform and E. coli.
Fluoride
The Ohio Department of Health's report to the CDC (My Water's Fluoride) says Leetonia Village buys its water from Salem City, a system that adjusts the fluoride level to the recommended level for preventing tooth decay.
EPA's treatment table lists fluoridation among the steps at Salem City, which treats the water Leetonia Village buys.
Measured fluoride: 1.34 mg/L on average leaving the plants of Salem City, which supplies Leetonia Village, in 2019 (above the target); samples ran from 0.85 to 1.34 mg/L across 8 samples in 2012 to 2019.
The recommended level for preventing tooth decay is 0.7 mg/L; the federal limit is 4 mg/L. The treatment list is what each system registered with EPA and can lag a plant upgrade.
Source: CDC My Water's Fluoride (fluoridation status as reported by the Ohio Department of Health, fetched September 2026); EPA Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS) treatment table; EPA Six-Year Review 4 compliance monitoring data, 2012 to 2019, entry-point fluoride samples.
Lithium
Lithium was not detected in 4 UCMR 5 samples at Salem City, which supplies Leetonia Village, last sampled in 2024 (the method reports from 9 µg/L).
Lithium is not regulated. EPA's draft health reference level is 10 µg/L, and it occurs naturally in deep groundwater, so well systems in the northwest run highest.
Source: EPA UCMR 5 occurrence data (final release, August 2026), samples from 2023 to 2025.
Algal toxins
The water Leetonia Village buys is treated by Salem City, so the results below are Salem City's.
Ohio EPA tests for microcystin, a toxin that harmful algal blooms can release, in raw water at the intake and in treated water.
At the intake, microcystin was detected 11 times in 234 raw-water samples, across 3 bloom seasons (2016 to 2026); the highest raw-water result was 3.16 µg/L on June 7, 2016. The highest raw-water result since 2024 was 0.598 µg/L.
Microcystin was never detected in treated water (134 samples).
In all, 368 samples from 2016 to 2026, the latest on August 19, 2026.
| Water | Samples | Detections | Highest result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Raw water, at the intake | 234 | 11 | 3.16 µg/L |
| Treated water | 134 | 0 | not detected |
The ten-day advisory levels for treated water are 0.3 µg/L for children under six and 1.6 µg/L for everyone else. Any detection at the intake triggers more frequent testing until two clean weeks.
Source: Ohio EPA public water system harmful algal bloom monitoring, 2016 to present (HAB data, fetched September 2026).
Water and sewer bills
Ohio EPA's 2023 rate survey puts the water bill at Leetonia Village for a household using 5,000 gallons a month at $895 a year, about $75 a month.
The sewer bill in the same survey is $610 a year at 5,000 gallons a month.
| Use | Water, per year | Sewer, per year |
|---|---|---|
| 2,500 gallons a month | $586 | $456 |
| 5,000 gallons a month | $895 | $610 |
| 8,000 gallons a month | $1,267 | $796 |
The survey lists it as “Leetonia”. These are inside-city rates and annual bills at the use shown.
Source: Ohio EPA 2023 Sewer and Water Rate Survey (Ohio State University, May 2025).
How well the service area is mapped
EPA estimated the service area of Leetonia Village with a computer model rather than drawing it from the utility's map, so its edges are approximate.
Source: EPA Service Area Boundaries; resident estimate by this atlas from ZIP-code overlap.
On the map
Show this system's territory on the map — 1 ZIP code in all.
Sources
U.S. EPA SDWIS and Community Water System Service Area Boundaries (v3, 2026), Ohio EPA primacy data, 2020 census blocks: the system serving most residents, traced through purchases to the treating utility; Ohio EPA 2023 Sewer and Water Rate Survey (Ohio State, May 2025) for household bills; Ohio EPA DEFA loan awards since 2016 for the loans paragraph · EPA SDWIS · EPA service area boundaries · Ohio EPA drinking water · Ohio EPA rate survey
EPA's own record for this system: Enforcement and Compliance History report for OH1501412 (EPA ECHO).
