Lakewood City

• Lakewood has never built a water treatment plant. It buys finished water from Cleveland and, by its own description, does not add a single chemical or even adjust the pressure before it reaches taps.
• A 2022 federal consent decree counted at least 1,933 raw sewage discharges from Lakewood's sewers into the Rocky River and Lake Erie since January 2016, triggering an $85 million fix.
• Roughly 166 miles of Lakewood sewer main carry sewage and storm runoff in the same pipe, so a hard rain is what pushes overflows into the river.
• Cleveland's waterworks, Lakewood's sole supplier, first pulled Lake Erie water in September 1856 - and delivered all of about 38,000 gallons a day that first year.

• 1856Cleveland's municipal water system, Lakewood's eventual supplier, first delivered Lake Erie water in September through a 50-inch tunnel.
• 1889Lakewood incorporated as a village; it never built a water treatment plant of its own, buying finished water from Cleveland instead.
• 2022US EPA and Ohio filed an interim partial consent decree over at least 1,933 raw sewage discharges to the Rocky River and Lake Erie since January 2016.

How it is treated

Lakewood treats no water of its own. It buys 100% finished drinking water wholesale from the City of Cleveland Division of Water, which draws from four intakes far offshore in Lake Erie's Central Basin and treats with potassium permanganate, alum, powdered activated carbon, filtration and chlorine.…

Water pressure

not published; Lakewood states it does not adjust pressure on the water it receives from Cleveland

$12.91 per 1,000 gallons

Effective Jan. 1, 2026: $9.66 per ccf for water ($12.91 per 1,000 gal) and $11.04 per ccf for sewer, plus a $5 impervious surface fee per 2,800 sq ft equivalent residential unit.…

EPA compliance record

Lead at the tap: 90th-percentile result 1.7 ppb in 2025 (action level 15 ppb).

EPA record: no health-based violations since 2015.

9 violations of any kind logged since 2020, 9 of them paperwork (monitoring, reporting, public notice or consumer report).

EPA compliance record · Cleveland Public Water System (treats the water)

Lead at the tap: 90th-percentile result 0 ppb in 2024 (action level 15 ppb).

EPA record: no health-based violations since 2015.

1 violation of any kind logged since 2020, 1 of them paperwork (monitoring, reporting, public notice or consumer report).

Recent and current work

• Consent decree sewer improvements (Integrated Wet Weather Improvement Plan) · $85 million · 2022- · under construction
  High-rate CSO treatment, two large wet-weather storage basins, pipe lining and repair, plus a $100,000 penalty split evenly between the US and Ohio.

Planned or needed

• Remaining CSO and SSO control work under the interim consent decree · planned
  The 2022 decree is a partial settlement; the city expects the wet-weather program to take decades, working from the largest overflow points down.

The supply itself is not constrained - Lake Erie via Cleveland, whose offshore intakes Ohio EPA rates as low susceptibility. The pressure is on the sewer side: an aging, largely combined collection system that discharged raw sewage into the Rocky River and Lake Erie on nearly 2,000 occasions since 2016 and is now under federal decree.…

Sanitary

Lakewood operates its own collection system and its own Wastewater Treatment Plant at 1699 Valley Parkway (a Public Works division), discharging toward Lake Erie and the Rocky River - it is not treated by the regional district. Under a 2022 federal and state interim partial consent decree after at least 1,933 alleged raw sewage…

Storm

About 166 miles of largely combined storm and sanitary sewer main, which is what drives the CSO consent decree work. The city funds stormwater management through an impervious surface fee, $5 per 2,800 sq ft equivalent residential unit as of 2026.

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