Water system
Wellston City
EPA ID OH4001912 · Jackson County · 5,846 people served · owned by a local government
Wellston City treats its own water from Lake Rupert + Lake Alma (Little Raccoon Creek reservoirs).
The system's record
- Water bodies
- Lake Rupert, Lake Alma, Little Raccoon Creek
- Raw intakes
- Lake Rupert (n Wtp)
Lake Alma (n Wtp)
Little Raccoon Creek (n Wtp)
Impoundment (n Wtp) - Active wells
- 3
- Serves
- 5,846 people · Jackson County
- EPA ID
- OH4001912
Primary source is a blend of two city-owned reservoirs (Lake Rupert and Lake Alma) on Little Raccoon Creek in Vinton/Jackson County; SDWIS also lists 3 active wells as a supplemental/backup groundwater source.
About this area's water
Did you know
- Wellston's drinking water is drawn partly from an abandoned coal mine — the city's CCR lists it as a ground water source and notes it is really a ground/surface mixture, a direct legacy of the area's mining history.
- The city runs two separate treatment plants, North and South, whose outputs blend into one distribution system. The difference shows in the tap: North Plant water tested at 1.28 ppm fluoride in 2025 while South WTP…
- Ground has been broken on an entirely new Water Treatment Facility that will replace both aging plants, with the city projecting it operational by the end of 2028.
- Wellston reported zero violations in 2024, but picked up two reporting violations in 2025 — it missed a two-week Total Microcystins sampling window and left its UCMR5 results out of the previous year's report. It kept…
History5
- 2024Unconditioned license to operate; no violations reported in the 2024 Consumer Confidence Report.
- 20252024 CCR (issued May 2025) announced that groundbreaking on a new Water Treatment Facility was set for that year, alongside grant applications for distribution-system work.
- 2025Ground broken on the new Water Treatment Facility; the 2025 CCR projects it operational by the end of 2028.
- 2025Two monitoring/reporting violations: the city failed to collect a Total Microcystins sample in the 8/17-8/30/2025 window (returned to compliance with samples on 9/10/2025, results within limits), and…
- 2025Retained an unconditioned license to operate despite the two reporting violations.
Treatment & pressure
How it is treated
Wellston draws from Little Raccoon Creek (surface water) blended with water from an abandoned coal mine, which the city describes as a mixture of ground water and surface water. The supply is treated at two separate plants, the North Plant and the South WTP, whose outputs feed one distribution…
Source: cityofwellston.orgcityofwellston.org
Water pressure
Not published. No distribution pressure figure or pressure-zone map appears in the 2024 or 2025 CCR or anywhere on the city's website.
What it costs
Genuinely unpublished. Wellston posts no water or sewer rate schedule online. The Clerk's Office page (203 E Broadway St) states it handles monthly utility billing and meter…
Water quality & impurities10
| Contaminant | Level | Limit | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| TTHM (total trihalomethanes) Compliance value is the running annual average. Individual detections ranged 8.2-94.4 ppb, so single samples exceeded… | 65.6 ppb | 80 (MCL) | 2025 |
| HAA5 (haloacetic acids) Distribution system; range of individual detections 0-74.6 ppb. No violation. | 44.6 ppb | 60 (MCL) | 2025 |
| Total chlorine Distribution system; range 2.06-2.30 ppm. | 2.19 ppm | 4 (MRDL) | 2025 |
| Lead (90th percentile) 0 of 20 samples exceeded the action level. Still the most recent lead sampling round reported in the 2025 CCR. | 2 ppb | 15 (action… | 2023 |
| Copper (90th percentile) 0 of 20 samples exceeded the action level. | 0.072 ppm | 1.3 (action… | 2023 |
| Nitrate North Plant; range <0.10-0.33 ppm. Well below the MCL. | 0.33 ppm | 10 (MCL) | 2025 |
| Fluoride North Plant range 1.15-1.29 ppm. The two plants differ roughly eightfold — only the North Plant appears to fluoridate. | 1.28 (North… ppm | 4 (MCL) | 2025 |
| Barium Both plants far below the MCL. | 0.02 (North) /… ppm | 2 (MCL) | 2025 |
| Turbidity Highest recorded 2025 result was 0.47 NTU; lowest monthly percentage of samples meeting the limit was 99.2%. No… | 0.33 (North) /… NTU | TT: 0.3 NTU in… | 2025 |
| Total Organic Carbon (removal ratio) Worth watching: both plants posted a minimum monthly ratio of exactly 1.0 in 2025 (North range 1.0-1.44, South… | 1.0 (both… ratio of… | TT: must stay… | 2025 |
Source: cityofwellston.orgcityofwellston.org
EPA compliance record
Lead at the tap: 90th-percentile result 2 ppb in 2023 (action level 15 ppb).
EPA health-based violations since 2015:
- 2018Haloacetic acids (HAA5) · exceeded a maximum contaminant level · measured 0.061 MG/L (limit 0.06 MG/L) · returned to compliance
- 2017Haloacetic acids (HAA5) · exceeded a maximum contaminant level · measured 0.064 MG/L (limit 0.06 MG/L) · returned to compliance
2 violations of any kind logged since 2020, 2 of them paperwork (monitoring, reporting, public notice or consumer report).
Projects & plans2
Recent and current work
- New Wellston Water Treatment Facility · 2025 · under construction
The 2025 CCR states ground has been broken and the facility is projected operational by the end of 2028, replacing the aging North/South plant arrangement. The…
Source: cityofwellston.org
Planned or needed
- Distribution system improvement grants · 2024-2025 · proposed
Both the 2024 and 2025 CCRs say the city is applying for several grants for distribution-system improvements. No specific project, grant program, award, or…
Supply stress
Both raw-water inputs carry a high susceptibility rating in the city's own CCRs. The Little Raccoon Creek supply is surface water, which Ohio EPA treats as inherently susceptible: it is openly accessible and moves fast enough that an upstream spill can reach the intake with little warning. The abandoned coal mine source, a ground/surface…
Sewers
Sanitary
Not documented in sources reviewed. The CCRs cover drinking water only, and the city website publishes no wastewater plant capacity, process, receiving stream, or NPDES information.
Storm
Not documented in sources reviewed. No stormwater utility or dedicated fee identified.
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
- 45692 · Wellston54% of residents
Also present in 2 more ZIP codes
- 45640 · Jackson3% of residents
- 45634 · Clinton Township and Hamden0% 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
Wellston City does not buy water from another system on record; it treats its own source water.
No other system is on record buying water from Wellston City.
Photograph
On the map
Show this system's territory on the map — 3 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
Wellston City's own pages: vintoncountytravel.com, visitvintonohio.com
Notable facts: cityofwellston.org, cityofwellston.org
History: cityofwellston.org, cityofwellston.org
Water quality: cityofwellston.org, cityofwellston.org
Planned work: cityofwellston.org, cityofwellston.org
Capital projects: cityofwellston.org
Rates: cityofwellston.org, cityofwellston.org
Treatment: cityofwellston.org, cityofwellston.org
Supply stress: cityofwellston.org, cityofwellston.org