Water system
Kelleys Island Village
EPA ID OH2201111 · Erie County · 3,125 people served · owned by a local government
Kelleys Island Village treats its own water from Lake Erie.
The system's record
- Water bodies
- Lake Erie
- Raw intakes
- Lake Erie
- Serves
- 3,125 people · Erie County
- EPA ID
- OH2201111
Island system with a single Lake Erie intake; no wells or purchased water listed.
About this area's water
Did you know
- The island's raw water intake reaches 600 feet out into Lake Erie. When it failed in 2025 the village kept water flowing by rigging a portable bypass pump -- which itself became an Ohio EPA Notice of Violation, twice.
- A peer-reviewed survey of cyanobacterial toxins in the Laurentian Great Lakes (Miller et al., Marine Drugs, 2017) listed the Kelleys Island plant among systems where microcystin turned up in finished, already-treated…
- Kelleys Island has a municipal water system serving over 800 homes and businesses -- and no municipal sewer at all. More than 550 septic systems and a dozen separately permitted package plants handle the island's…
- A drinking water violation here can be a weather problem: the village's Q1 2025 HAA5 monitoring violation happened because the samples froze and there was no flying weather to get a replacement off the island in time.
- Residential water runs $14.53 per 100 cubic feet -- about $19.43 per 1,000 gallons -- roughly four times what a New London resident pays in the equivalent tier, and it is billed only four times a year.
Source: kelleysisland.uspmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.govkelleysisland.us
History6
- 2010-2015…Miller et al., writing in Marine Drugs, listed the Kelleys Island Water Treatment Plant among Great Lakes systems where microcystin was detected in finished drinking water -- mean 0.025 ug/L and…
- 2024Village announced (Sept 9, 2024) that K.E. McCartney & Associates had been selected as project engineer for the Kelleys Island Sanitary Improvements Project, with GPS and aerial LiDAR drone surveying…
- 2025Ohio EPA issued a Notice of Violation dated May 13, 2025 for an HAA5 monitoring violation in Q1 2025: the samples froze and there was no flying weather to ship a replacement sample off the island in…
- 2025The raw water intake pipe failed and the village bypassed it with a portable pump, drawing a Notice of Violation dated September 18, 2025 and a further raw-water-intake Notice of Violation dated…
- 2025Village administrator reported to council on October 11, 2025 that the village had received final approval from OPWC to begin the water intake project. The water department also reported two water…
- 2025Council took up a resolution in November 2025 selecting Simonson Construction Services, Inc. as best-value construction manager at risk for the sanitary collection system and WWTP project, with…
Source: kelleysisland.uspmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.govkelleysisland.us
Treatment & pressure
How it is treated
Surface water is drawn from an intake 600 feet out in Lake Erie and treated at the Kelleys Island Water Treatment Plant, with filtration performance tracked by turbidity (highest 2025 result 0.11 NTU against the 0.3 NTU limit, 100% of monthly samples compliant) and by Total Organic Carbon removal…
Source: kelleysisland.uskelleysisland.us
Water pressure
Not published. Neither the 2025 CCR nor the water department's Policies & Procedures sheet gives a service pressure or describes pressure zones, and none of the council minutes…
Source: kelleysisland.uskelleysisland.us
What it costs
$19.43 per 1,000 gallons
Typical household bill about $102 a month for water.
Kelleys Island Water Department Policies & Procedures, updated 10/24/2024. Bills go out quarterly in January, April, July and October, due 30 days after the end of the cycle. Base…
Source: kelleysisland.us
Water quality & impurities10
| Contaminant | Level | Limit | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total Trihalomethanes (TTHM) Range of detections 32.70-78.9 ppb; disinfection by-product. No violation. | 57.8 ppb | MCL 80 | 2025 |
| Haloacetic Acids (HAA5) Range 7.4-27.4 ppb. Subject to a Q1 2025 monitoring violation (a paperwork/sampling failure, not an exceedance) after… | 20.55 ppb | MCL 60 | 2025 |
| Total Chlorine Range 1.17-1.89 ppm; residual disinfectant. Omitted from the earlier draft. | 1.49 ppm | MRDL 4 | 2025 |
| Nitrate (as Nitrogen) Range 0-1.41 ppm; well below the MCL. | 0.47 ppm | MCL 10 | 2025 |
| Barium Range 0.014-0.014 ppm. Omitted from the earlier draft. | 0.014 ppm | MCL 2 | 2025 |
| Fluoride Range 0.1-0.1 ppm. Notably low -- roughly a tenth of the level at fluoridating systems like New London and Millersport.… | 0.1 ppm | MCL 4 | 2025 |
| Turbidity The CCR's table gives level found 0.08 NTU with a range of 0.02-0.11; the narrative box gives the highest result as… | 0.11 NTU… | TT: 0.3 NTU in… | 2025 |
| Total Organic Carbon (removal ratio) Range 1.2-2.1. In compliance. | 1.52 ratio… | TT: value… | 2025 |
| Lead (90th percentile) 0 of 10 sites over the action level. No lead, galvanized-requiring-replacement, or unknown-status service lines in the… | 0 ppb | AL 15 | 2025 |
| Copper (90th percentile) The CCR prints the 90th-percentile value as 174 in a row labelled ppm with an action level of 1.3 ppm, which cannot be… | 174 ppb (see… | AL 1.3 ppm | 2025 |
Source: kelleysisland.us
EPA compliance record
Lead at the tap: 90th-percentile result 2.5 ppb in 2025 (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).
Projects & plans3
Recent and current work
- Raw water intake project (failure, emergency bypass and repair) · 2025 · under construction
The intake pipe failed in 2025 and the village kept water flowing with a portable bypass pump, drawing Ohio EPA Notices of Violation dated September 18 and… - Water loss audit (third round) with ARCAP · 2025 · under construction
Village reported to council on October 11, 2025 that it was in the third round of its water loss audit with ARCAP, funded by an Ohio EPA grant. No cost or…
Source: kelleysisland.uskelleysisland.us
Planned or needed
- Kelleys Island Sanitary Improvements Project -- Phase 1 (gravity sewers, central pump station, new WWTP) · $8 million · 2026 · planned
Preliminary Phase 1 cost of approximately $8 million per K.E. McCartney & Associates' October 15, 2025 public meeting presentation, depending on funding and…
Supply stress
The entire island depends on a single Lake Erie surface intake, and that intake failed in 2025 -- the only way the village could keep water flowing was a portable bypass pump that itself drew two Ohio EPA Notices of Violation. There is no second source, no wells, and no purchased water. Ohio EPA treats all surface water as susceptible…
Source: kelleysisland.uspmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.govkelleysisland.us
Sewers
Sanitary
No centralized municipal sewer system and no village wastewater treatment plant. Several small package plants serve the downtown, condominiums, and large businesses, parks and camps under 12 individual NPDES permits -- the engineer's October 2025 presentation lists the State Park campground and Camp Patmos at 20,000 gpd each, West Bay…
Storm
No dedicated stormwater utility or fee appears in the village's published water department fee schedule. Heavy rains in early July 2026 caused significant flooding across the island, severely flooding the EMS training and storage rooms and damaging water…
Sourcesverified
Compiled from the utility's own reports and public records, then independently re-checked against primary sources.
Main supplier in 1 ZIP code
Serves
Main water supplier in 1 ZIP code
- 43438 · Kelleys Island65% 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
Kelleys Island Village does not buy water from another system on record; it treats its own source water.
No other system is on record buying water from Kelleys Island Village.
Photograph
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
Kelleys Island Village's own pages: eriecounty.oh.gov
Notable facts: kelleysisland.us, pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, kelleysisland.us, kelleysisland.us
History: kelleysisland.us, pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, kelleysisland.us, kelleysisland.us
Water quality: kelleysisland.us
Planned work: kelleysisland.us, kelleysisland.us, kelleysisland.us
Water pressure: kelleysisland.us, kelleysisland.us
Capital projects: kelleysisland.us, kelleysisland.us
Rates: kelleysisland.us
Sewers: kelleysisland.us, kelleysisland.us, kelleysisland.us
Treatment: kelleysisland.us, kelleysisland.us
Supply stress: kelleysisland.us, pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, kelleysisland.us, kelleysisland.us