Water system
Tri-county Water Authority
EPA ID OH3401403 · Harrison County · 2,370 people served
Tri-county Water Authority buys its water from Belmont Co. Sanitary District 3.
The system's record
Also connected to Martins Ferry Public Water System (Ohio River valley aquifer (wells)), used as a secondary or emergency supply.
- Aquifer
- Alluvial aquifer along the Ohio River, north of Bellaire
- Water bodies
- Ohio River (via alluvial aquifer)
- Active wells
- 1
- Serves
- 26,822 people · Belmont County
- EPA ID
- OH0700412
Belmont Co. Sanitary District 3 sources from a shallow, high-susceptibility well/aquifer north of Bellaire tied to the Ohio River valley.
About this area's water
Did you know
- Martins Ferry, one of Tri-County's two wholesale water sources, draws not from the Ohio River directly but from an underground aquifer that flows south from northern Ohio, treated with ozone rather than only chlorine.
- Harrisville was the site of an 1834 petition signed by 35 local women calling on Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia and demanding 'immediate enfranchisement of every human being that shall tread…
- Tri-County blends two independently sourced groundwater supplies from different counties -- Martins Ferry's wells in Belmont County and Belmont County Sanitary Sewer District #3's wellfield near Bellaire -- rather than…
Source: martinsferry.orgen.wikipedia.orgbelmontcountywater.com
History2
- 1814Harrisville platted by John Wells, Thomas Gray, Store Hutchinson and Robert Dutton on October 19, 1814 (plat filed January 9, 1815, John Wells as proprietor).
- 1997Martins Ferry, one of Tri-County's two purchased-water suppliers, completed a new water treatment plant using a traveling-bridge filter and ozonation process, drawing on an underground aquifer that…
Source: en.wikipedia.orgmartinsferry.org
Treatment & pressure
How it is treated
Tri-County itself does not treat water; it purchases a blend of finished groundwater from Belmont County Sanitary Sewer District #3 (a single large radial collector well near Bellaire, drawing ~4.3-4.5 MGD from the sand-and-gravel Ohio River Buried Valley aquifer, against 6 MGD plant/source…
Source: martinsferry.orgbelmontcountywater.com
Water pressure
Not published.
Water quality & impurities
EPA compliance record
Lead at the tap: 90th-percentile result 2.1 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 · Belmont Co. Sanitary District 3 (treats the water)
Lead at the tap: 90th-percentile result 0 ppb in 2026 (action level 15 ppb).
EPA health-based violations since 2015:
- 2024Lead and Copper Rule (lead) · treatment technique violation · returned to compliance
4 violations of any kind logged since 2020, 3 of them paperwork (monitoring, reporting, public notice or consumer report).
Supply stress
Martins Ferry's plant (built 1997) runs at roughly 2 MGD against a design capacity of up to 5 MGD -- real headroom, confirmed on Martins Ferry's own site. By contrast, Ohio EPA's source water assessment for Belmont County Sanitary Sewer District #3 (Tri-County's other wholesale supplier, revised June 2024) rates that source's aquifer…
Sewers
Sanitary
Not confirmed this session -- no source located describing sanitary sewer arrangements for the Harrisville, Harrison County service area.
Storm
Not confirmed this session.
Sourcesverified
Compiled from the utility's own reports and public records, then independently re-checked against primary sources.
Main supplier in 1 ZIP code
Serves
Main water supplier in 1 ZIP code
- 43974 · Harrisville100% of residents
Also present in 4 more ZIP codes
- 43901 · Adena11% of residents
- 43907 · Cadiz2% of residents
- 43917 · Smithfield Township and Dillonvale2% of residents
- 43950 · Richland Township and Saint Clairsville1% of residents
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
Tri-county Water Authority buys its water from Belmont Co. Sanitary District 3.
2 systems on record buy water from Tri-county Water Authority: Adena Village, HCWSD - Georgetown.
Photograph
On the map
Show this system's territory on the map — 5 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
Tri-county Water Authority's own pages: belmontcountywater.com, martinsferry.org
Notable facts: martinsferry.org, en.wikipedia.org, belmontcountywater.com
History: en.wikipedia.org, martinsferry.org
Rates: martinsferry.org
Treatment: martinsferry.org, belmontcountywater.com
Supply stress: martinsferry.org, belmontcountywater.com