Erie Co. Vermilion W District

• Vermilion's plant is dual-sourced: Lake Erie normally, the Vermilion River when necessary, plus emergency interconnections with both Lorain and Erie County — four possible ways to get water into the mains, unusual for a…
• The inside-city sewer rate is scheduled to more than triple in three years, from $7.22 per 100 cubic feet in 2023 to $24.36 in 2026, to pay for an EPA-mandated new treatment plant.
• You can buy water by the truckload at the Vermilion Bulk Water Station for $1.00 per 100 gallons.
• Households earning under $26,000 a year can apply annually for a 50% discount on the base rate and on the first 300 cubic feet of water each month.
• Sending a 5/8-inch water meter out for accuracy testing costs $450 — refunded if the meter turns out to be reading wrong.

Source: cityofvermilionohio.govcityofvermilionohio.govcityofvermilionohio.gov

• 2022The city held an unconditioned Ohio EPA license to operate. Emergency interconnections with the City of Lorain and Erie County Water were used occasionally during system repairs.
• 2022Water and sewer tap fees and capital improvement fees were raised effective June 1; council authorized water rate increases for January 2023 (3%), 2024 (2.5%) and 2025 (2.5%).
• 2023Ordinance 2023-46 set a four-year escalator on sewer rates: the inside-city volumetric charge rises from $7.22 per 100 cubic feet in 2023 to $11.033 in 2024, $16.439 in 2025 and $24.36 in 2026.
• 2023Ohio BUILDS Round 5 awarded the city $4,087,906 in July to replace sanitary sewer service laterals and install cleanouts throughout the Vermilion on the Lake neighborhood.
• 2023In a September bulletin the city told residents that an Ohio EPA requirement to build a new sewer treatment plant, plus non-compliance penalties, would mean borrowing over $70 million and roughly a…
• 2026Clearing for Jackson Street construction began August 24 and storm sewer construction began September 8, with Highbridge Road closed between the bridge and Parkside Reserve.

Source: cityofvermilionohio.govcityofvermilionohio.govcityofvermilionohio.gov

How it is treated

The Vermilion Water Plant draws raw water from Lake Erie and can switch to a Vermilion River intake if necessary; it also holds emergency interconnections with the City of Lorain and Erie County water systems. The CCR does not publish the treatment train step by step. What it documents is a…

Source: cityofvermilionohio.gov

Water pressure

Not published. No system-wide psi figure appears in the city's CCR, water department rules, or utilities pages.

$10.37 per 1,000 gallons

Typical household bill about $44 a month for water.

The city's codified water rules (section 1046.46, as published in the Water Department Rules and Regulations) set an inside-corporate-limits base rate of $5.00 per month per unit…

Source: cityofvermilionohio.govcityofvermilionohio.govcityofvermilionohio.gov

Source: cityofvermilionohio.gov

EPA compliance record · Erie Co. Vermilion W District

Lead at the tap: 90th-percentile result 0 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).

EPA compliance record · Vermilion City (treats the water)

Lead at the tap: 90th-percentile result 0 ppb in 2025 (action level 15 ppb).

EPA record: no health-based violations since 2015.

3 violations of any kind logged since 2020, 3 of them paperwork (monitoring, reporting, public notice or consumer report).

Recent and current work

• Vermilion on the Lake sanitary sewer lateral replacement and cleanout installation · $4.1 million · 2023 · planned
  Ohio BUILDS Round 5 grant awarded July 2023 to replace all existing sanitary sewer service laterals to the right-of-way and install cleanouts for all…
• Jackson Street reconstruction and storm sewer construction · 2026 · under construction
  Clearing began August 24, 2026; storm sewer work began September 8, 2026, with Highbridge Road closed between the bridge and Parkside Reserve. Cost not…

Source: content.govdelivery.comcityofvermilionohio.gov

Planned or needed

• Ohio EPA-mandated wastewater treatment plant replacement · $70 million · 2023 · planned
  The city has told residents it must build a new sewer treatment facility under EPA requirements, with penalties for non-compliance, requiring borrowing of over…

Source: content.govdelivery.comcityofvermilionohio.gov

Vermilion is a Lake Erie shoreline plant, so raw-water quantity is not the constraint — quality and resilience are. Ohio EPA's source water assessment finds the Lake Erie source susceptible to contamination from municipal wastewater treatment discharges, industrial wastewater discharges, air contamination deposition, runoff from…

Source: cityofvermilionohio.govcontent.govdelivery.com

Sanitary

The city runs its own wastewater treatment plant (Utilities Department, Dan Hall). It is under an Ohio EPA requirement to build a new sewer treatment facility, which the city says means borrowing over $70 million and a roughly 350% sewer rate increase. Ordinance 2023-46 sets the inside-city volumetric sewer rate at $7.22 per 100 cubic…

Storm

The city builds and maintains storm sewers as part of street projects — storm sewer construction on Jackson Street began September 8, 2026 — but no separate stormwater utility, fee, or system description is published.

Source: cityofvermilionohio.govcontent.govdelivery.comcityofvermilionohio.gov

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