Obetz Satellite 2

• Hoover Reservoir is named for brothers Charles P. and Clarence B. Hoover for their careers with the Columbus waterworks - no relation to President Hoover or the Nevada dam.
• Columbus softens its water with lime and soda ash, a step most big Ohio surface-water systems skip, so the finished water is noticeably less hard than the raw river.
• The Dublin Road plant runs anion exchange, essentially a water softener for nitrate, to handle spring farm runoff in the Scioto River.
• The new Home Road plant will sit on the grounds of a shuttered juvenile correctional facility in Delaware County.

• 1871Columbus's first water supply system, a well and pump station, is built at the confluence of the Scioto and Olentangy rivers.
• 1908Scioto River Purification Plant and Griggs Reservoir are completed; the plant was replaced in 1975 by the Dublin Road Water Plant.
• 1953Hoover Reservoir is built on Big Walnut Creek (3,024 acres, 20.8 billion gal) per the city timeline; the dam was dedicated 1955 and opened 1958.
• 1956Big Walnut Water Treatment Plant on Morse Road is completed; it was renamed the Hap Cremean Water Plant in 1988.
• 2025Construction begins on the Home Road (fourth) Water Plant in Delaware County, on the site of the former Scioto Juvenile Correctional Facility.

How it is treated

Screening, alum coagulation, flocculation and sedimentation, lime/soda-ash softening and second sedimentation, CO2 pH adjustment, ozone, biologically active GAC filters, UV, then chlorine, fluoride and a corrosion inhibitor. Parsons Ave. groundwater skips screening, ozone and UV.

Water pressure

Not published as a citywide average. Columbus maintains multiple pressure districts fed by elevated tanks and pump stations across a large multi-county service area.

$5.95 per 1,000 gallons

Effective Jan. 1, 2026, inside-city residential: $4.448/CCF first 5 CCF/mo, $4.932/CCF above, plus $12.45/mo service charge (5/8in meter). 1 CCF = 748 gal.

EPA compliance record · Obetz Satellite 2

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

EPA record: no health-based violations since 2015.

4 violations of any kind logged since 2020, 4 of them paperwork (monitoring, reporting, public notice or consumer report).

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

Lead at the tap: 90th-percentile result 1.2 ppb in 2023 (action level 15 ppb).

EPA health-based violations since 2015:

• 2016Nitrate · exceeded a maximum contaminant level · measured 10.5 MG/L (limit 10 MG/L) · returned to compliance

Recent and current work

• Hap Cremean and Dublin Road ozone / biologically active filtration · completed
  Both surface plants now use ozone plus biologically active GAC filters and UV for taste, odor and byproduct control.
• Home Road (Fourth) Water Plant - construction start · 2025 · under construction
  Site work and early construction in Delaware County on the former Scioto Juvenile Correctional Facility site.
• Lead Service Line Replacement Program · 2024-present · under construction
  City program established in 2024 to remove all public and private lead and galvanized service lines.
• Blueprint Columbus · 2015-present · under construction
  Ohio EPA approved Dec. 1, 2015; green infrastructure and lining to cut sanitary sewer overflows.

Planned or needed

• Home Road (Fourth) Water Treatment Plant · $1600 million · planned
  48 MGD initially, expandable to 80 MGD; billed as the city's largest water infrastructure investment.

Central Ohio's rapid growth is the driver behind the $1.6B fourth plant. The Scioto River sees seasonal nitrate spikes from farm runoff - 6.3 ppm at Dublin Road in 2025 against a 10 ppm MCL - so the plant runs anion exchange to strip nitrate. PFAS monitoring starts 2027, compliance 2029.

Sanitary

The City of Columbus Division of Sewerage and Drainage runs two wastewater plants, Jackson Pike and Southerly, which together treated an average of 181 million gallons per day in 2023. Blueprint Columbus, approved by Ohio EPA on Dec. 1, 2015, is the city's Clean Water Act plan for cutting sanitary sewer overflows.

Storm

Older parts of Columbus have combined sanitary/storm sewers. Blueprint Columbus leans on green infrastructure, sewer lining and redirected downspouts to keep rain out of the sanitary system rather than building storage alone.

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