Water system
Northern Ohio Rural Water - NW District
EPA ID OH2201803 · Erie County · 6,409 people served · owned by a local government
Northern Ohio Rural Water - NW District buys its water from Erie Co. Margaretta District.
The system's record
- Water bodies
- Lake Erie, Sandusky Bay
- Raw intakes
- Sandusky Bay
Lake Erie - Serves
- 25,793 people · Erie County
- EPA ID
- OH2201411
Main intake is in Lake Erie; the Sandusky Bay intake serves as an emergency/backup source.
About this area's water Sandusky City
Did you know
- Despite the name, Big Island Water Works does not drink from Sandusky Bay: its primary intake is a 42-inch steel pipe three-quarters of a mile out into Lake Erie off the Cedar Point Chaussee, gravity-fed to the plant…
- The plant has tested for microcystins every year since 2011 — the same liver toxin from harmful algal blooms that shut down Toledo's water supply in 2014 — and reported non-detect results in 2024.
- In mid-January 2024 a frazil-ice event (slushy ice that forms in supercooled, turbulent water and can clog an intake) forced the plant to switch temporarily to its emergency Sandusky Bay intake.
- The 2024 report shows no treatment violations and a 90th-percentile lead result of 6 ppb, with the highest single tap sample at 13 ppb — none of the 30 homes tested reached the 15 ppb threshold.
- The report's author, Water Services Superintendent William R. Burch, was in his 23rd year of commercial water purification and holds a Class IV Ohio EPA water supply operator certification.
Source: cms6.revize.com
History4
- 2011Big Island Water Works began testing finished water for algal toxins (microcystins) from Lake Erie harmful algal blooms; the treatment process has removed them every year since.
- 2023The plant's emergency-generator master control console failed in late 2023, prompting the city to prioritize an emergency-controls upgrade; during the equipment lead time staff manually tested…
- 2024BIWW replaced the 20-year-old control panels on each emergency generator, and one frazil-ice event in mid-January forced a temporary switch to the emergency Sandusky Bay intake.
- 2024City Commission approved a seven-year water and sewer rate schedule (effective June 1, 2024) raising water rates 15% in 2024 and 2025 and 3% per year 2026-2030.
Treatment & pressure
How it is treated
Surface water from Lake Erie enters through a 42-inch steel intake pipe located three-quarters of a mile off the Cedar Point Chaussee and is gravity-fed to the Big Island Water Works plant (2425 First Street). Treatment includes filtration (turbidity held to 0.19 NTU maximum in 2024, 100% of…
Source: cms6.revize.com
Water pressure
No psi figures or pressure zones are published. The 2024 CCR states only that city water mains are pressurized under normal conditions and that pressure is 'greatly reduced'…
Source: cms6.revize.com
What it costs
$8.03 per 1,000 gallons
Typical household bill about $30 a month for water.
The city does not publish a per-1,000-gallon commodity rate. Its approved schedule gives the average single-family water bill (5 CCF = 500 cubic feet, about 3,740 gallons per…
Source: cityofsandusky.com
Water quality & impurities10
| Contaminant | Level | Limit | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| TTHM (Total Trihalomethanes) Chlorination by-product; quarterly sampling, range 16.9-88.4 ppb. No violation. | 59.7 ppb | 80 (MCL) | 2024 |
| HAA5 (Haloacetic Acids) Chlorination by-product; quarterly sampling, range 7.2-33.2 ppb. No violation. | 24.3 ppb | 60 (MCL) | 2024 |
| Lead (90th percentile) From 30 tap samples collected June 20-28, 2024. Lowest result was <4 ppb (non-detect), highest single sample 13 ppb… | 6 ppb | 15 (action… | 2024 |
| Copper (90th percentile) Same 30-sample round as lead; 0 of 30 homes exceeded. | 42 ppb | 1350 (action… | 2024 |
| Nitrate Monthly monitoring; range reported as 0.0-1.45 ppm in the CCR table. | 1.9 ppm | 10 (MCL) | 2024 |
| Fluoride Daily monitoring; range 0.7-1.03 ppm. Added to promote strong teeth. | 0.89 ppm | 4 (MCL) | 2024 |
| Turbidity Highest recorded reading; range 0.01-0.19 NTU and 100% of monthly samples met the limit. | 0.19 NTU | 0.30 NTU in 95%… | 2024 |
| Barium Range 0.016-0.016; erosion of natural deposits, drilling wastes, metal refineries. | 0.016 ppm | 2 (MCL) | 2024 |
| Chlorine (residual) Continuous monitoring; range 1.03-1.45 ppm. | 1.3 ppm | 4 (MRDL) | 2024 |
| Total Organic Carbon (removal ratio) Monthly; range reported 1.1-2.0. | 1.1 ratio | treatment… | 2024 |
Source: cms6.revize.com
EPA compliance record · Northern Ohio Rural Water - NW District
Lead at the tap: 90th-percentile result 0 ppb in 2023 (action level 15 ppb).
EPA record: no health-based violations since 2015.
EPA compliance record · Sandusky City (treats the water)
Lead at the tap: 90th-percentile result 5 ppb in 2025 (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).
Projects & plans1
Recent and current work
- Emergency generator control panel replacement · 2024 · completed
Replaced the 20-year-old control panels on each of the plant's emergency generators after the master control console failed in late 2023. No cost is published.
Source: cms6.revize.com
Supply stress
Lake Erie is a large, renewable surface source with no volumetric capacity constraint, but Ohio EPA treats all Ohio surface waters as susceptible to contamination because they are accessible and can be contaminated quickly, with short travel times from source to intake. Sandusky's own source-water assessment finds that even though the…
Source: cms6.revize.com
Sewers
Sanitary
Sanitary sewer service is run by the City of Sandusky's Water Pollution Control division (419.627.5907). Treatment plant capacity, receiving stream, and any consent decree or CSO long-term control plan were not published in the sources reviewed.
Storm
The city's source-water assessment lists combined sewer overflows among the contamination risks to its Lake Erie intake, indicating at least a partial combined sewer system. Sewer rates are held flat in 2024-2025 and rise 3% per year 2026-2030 under the…
Sourcesverified
Compiled from the utility's own reports and public records, then independently re-checked against primary sources.
Present in 0 ZIP codes
Serves
No ZIP code has Northern Ohio Rural Water - NW District on record as its main water supplier.
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
Northern Ohio Rural Water - NW District buys its water from Erie Co. Margaretta District, which buys from Sandusky City.
No other system is on record buying water from Northern Ohio Rural Water - NW District.
On the map
Show this system's territory on the map — 0 ZIP codes 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