Lancaster City

• Lancaster draws all of its drinking water from 16 wells in glacial sand and gravel of the Hocking River Valley Aquifer rather than from any river or lake intake.
• The city replaced its century-old Miller Park plant with an $85 million reverse-osmosis facility whose firm capacity, 9.3 MGD, is more than twice the city's sewer plant flow.
• Every Lancaster water bill carries a separate wellhead protection charge, as little as 59 cents a month, earmarked for guarding the aquifer the city sits on.
• Only 8% of Lancaster's sewers are combined, but that fraction still produces nine overflow points the city has until December 2033 to bring under control.

• 1877-1882The city builds a water system for fire protection in 1877, adds a standpipe in 1879 and expands it to domestic service in 1882.
• 1925The original Miller Park water plant is built; it will serve for roughly a century before replacement.
• 1932The North (Miller Park) wellfield becomes operational, drawing on the Hocking River Valley Aquifer.
• 1939The Lancaster (Lawrence Street) Water Pollution Control Facility is constructed on the Hocking River.
• 2014Ohio EPA approves the city's Phase II Long Term Control Plan for its nine remaining combined sewer overflows.

How it is treated

All groundwater: 12 wells at Miller Park (North) and 4 at the South wellfield draw the sand-and-gravel Hocking River Valley Aquifer. The new North plant uses reverse osmosis (9.3 MGD firm), gravity filtration, degasification and blending into a 1.2 MG clearwell.

Water pressure

not published; no system-wide psi figure found in the CCR, rate sheet or Ohio EPA permit materials

$8.00 per 1,000 gallons

Typical household bill about $45 a month for water.

Rate Sheet 99, eff. March 2026: residential $5.98/ccf plus a $13.77 monthly 3/4-inch meter charge and $0.88 wellhead fee; outside-corporate $8.21/ccf.

EPA compliance record

Lead at the tap: 90th-percentile result 0.8 ppb in 2025 (action level 15 ppb).

EPA record: no health-based violations since 2015.

Recent and current work

• Miller Park North Water Treatment Plant replacement · $85 million · completed
  Kokosing-built RO plant, 9.3 MGD firm capacity, 1.2 MG clearwell, three new wells and four wellhouses; completion year not published.
• Lancaster (Lawrence Street) WPCF upgrade · 2023 · under construction
  Ohio EPA's 2023 NPDES fact sheet says the 1939 plant is currently being upgraded; scope and cost not published.
• Upper Hocking WPCF expansion
  Ohio EPA's 2023 permit paperwork lists Upper Hocking at 4 MGD average design flow; expansion timeline and cost not published.

Planned or needed

• Combined sewer overflow Long Term Control Plan (Phase II) · 2033 · under construction
  Nine remaining CSOs to be cut to zero-to-four events in a typical year, with a final completion date of December 2033.

The city rates its own source water as highly susceptible to contamination because the aquifer is shallow sand and gravel; it has run a source water protection plan since 1996. No quantity stress or drought vulnerability is documented, and the new plant was sized partly for industrial growth.

Sanitary

Lancaster's Division of Water Pollution Control runs two Hocking River plants: the Lancaster (Lawrence Street) WPCF, built 1939 and being upgraded, at 10 MGD average design flow, 12 MGD secondary and 18 MGD peak hydraulic capacity serving about 30,000; and the Upper Hocking WPCF at 4 MGD.

Storm

The collection system is 92% separate and 8% combined with nine known CSOs under an Ohio EPA-approved control plan running to December 2033. A stormwater fee is billed at $9.25 per ERU per month.

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