Kenton City

• Kenton sits on the headwaters of the Scioto River, but its water does not come from the river valley at all - all seven city wells draw on the carbonate limestone aquifer of northwest Ohio.
• Kenton's own 2025 water quality report lists CCR content violations in four separate years - 2018, 2020, 2023 and 2024 - including a 2024 report in which the fluoride number was wrong and barium and cyanide were left…
• The city's report states plainly that Kenton 'currently has no program in place' to act on its Ohio EPA source water assessment.
• Ohio EPA has ordered Kenton to submit, by September 1, 2026, a feasibility study on whether to build an entirely new treatment plant or hand its water over to a regional system.
• Rebuilding the water and sewer lines under downtown Kenton is estimated at $16-20 million in total; the $5 million state grant announced in 2023 covers a single phase.

Source: cms2.revize.comkentondowntownplan.comwktn.com

• 2018Kenton's 2018 CCR omitted gross alpha and radium-228 data from the table of detected contaminants (disclosed later as a past CCR content violation).
• 2020The 2020 CCR omitted gross alpha data and listed contaminants that had not been detected.
• 2023Ohio awards Kenton a $5 million Ohio BUILDS Water Infrastructure Grant (announced July 21, 2023) for Phase 2 of the Historic Courthouse District project - nine downtown blocks of water, storm and…
• 2023The 2023 CCR wrongly printed radium-228 at 2.7 pCi/L and gross alpha at 0.88 pCi/L (both were actually non-detects) and omitted unresolved significant deficiencies.
• 2024Ohio EPA informs Kenton on December 31, 2024 of a significant deficiency for failing to report the most recent gross alpha and radium-228 data on the 2023 CCR; the city corrects it in the 2024 CCR…
• 2024The 2024 CCR is itself found deficient: the fluoride figure was incorrect, barium and cyanide were left out, and unresolved significant deficiencies were not disclosed.

Source: cms2.revize.comcms2.revize.comwktn.com

How it is treated

Seven city wells draw on the carbonate aquifer of northwest Ohio - not a Scioto River valley sand-and-gravel aquifer, despite Kenton sitting on the Scioto headwaters. Water is treated at the city's groundwater plant with chlorination (2025 average total chlorine 0.758 ppm), fluoridation, and…

Source: cms2.revize.com

Water pressure

Not published. No distribution pressure figure, pressure-zone map or engineering summary appears in Kenton's 2024 or 2025 CCR, on the water department page, or anywhere else on…

Source: cms2.revize.comcityofkenton.com

Not published. Kenton bills monthly - bills are mailed the last day of the month and due on the 15th, with a 10% penalty on the 16th - but neither the water department page nor…

Source: cityofkenton.comcityofkenton.com

Source: cms2.revize.comcms2.revize.com

EPA compliance record

Lead at the tap: 90th-percentile result 0.7 ppb in 2025 (action level 15 ppb).

EPA health-based violations since 2015:

• 2023Ground Water Rule · treatment technique violation · returned to compliance

6 violations of any kind logged since 2020, 5 of them paperwork (monitoring, reporting, public notice or consumer report).

Recent and current work

• Historic Courthouse District water/sewer/storm main replacement, Phase 2 · $5 million · 2023
  Funded by a $5 million Ohio BUILDS Water Infrastructure Grant announced July 21, 2023, covering nine downtown blocks of water, storm and sanitary mains.…

Source: wktn.com

Planned or needed

• Feasibility study for a new water treatment plant or regionalization · 2026 · needed
  Ohio EPA significant deficiency issued June 13, 2025; the completed plan is due September 1, 2026. No cost published.
• Repairs and upgrades to the existing water treatment plant · 2026 · needed
  Ohio EPA significant deficiency issued June 13, 2025; an updated repair timeline was due June 30, 2026. Scope and cost not published.
• Water loss reduction: master-meter verification and GIS modeling · 2026 · under construction
  Ohio EPA significant deficiency. A water audit was completed December 31, 2025; progress updates on metering verification and GIS modeling were due June 30…
• Lead service line material inventory completion · 2026 · needed
  Ohio EPA issued a 4H Inventory Notice monitoring/reporting warning on October 21, 2025 after the city missed a July 1, 2025 deadline; the city has posted…
• Full downtown water and sewer replacement program (all phases) · 2019 · proposed
  The Kenton Downtown Plan puts the total estimated cost of repairing the downtown's aging water and sewer lines at $16-20 million depending on final design; the…

Source: cms2.revize.comkentondowntownplan.com

Kenton's own CCR says its seven wells 'ensure an adequate supply of water for future needs and growth,' and Ohio EPA rates the carbonate aquifer's susceptibility to contamination as MODERATE, based on the presence of significant contaminant sources inside the protection area. The city states outright that it has no program in place to…

Source: cms2.revize.com

Sanitary

The City of Kenton operates its own wastewater treatment plant, but publishes essentially nothing about it - the city's wastewater plant page is a 'coming soon' placeholder, and no design flow, peak capacity, treatment process, receiving stream or NPDES/consent-decree detail could be substantiated from any retrievable source. Phase 2 of…

Storm

Downtown storm sewer mains are being replaced alongside water and sanitary mains in the $5 million Ohio BUILDS-funded Historic Courthouse District project. No separate stormwater utility fee was identified.

Source: cityofkenton.comwktn.com

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