Water system
Fairport Harbor Village
EPA ID OH4300411 · Lake County · 3,180 people served · owned by a local government
Fairport Harbor Village buys its water from Painesville City.
The system's record
- Water bodies
- Lake Erie
- Raw intakes
- Painesville Lake Erie Intak
Painesville Lake Erie Int - Serves
- 31,728 people · Lake County
- EPA ID
- OH4301611
Two own intakes both draw from Lake Erie; matches SDWIS SW hypothesis.
About this area's water Painesville City
Did you know
- Painesville's water plant is not in Painesville: it sits at 9565 Headlands Road in Mentor, off Titus Beach between Headlands State Park and the Mentor Marsh.
- In 2025 the system pumped 1.253 billion gallons through 157 miles of main, averaging 3.43 million gallons a day for about 35,000 people.
- Since October 2023 Painesville has supplied all of the drinking water for the Fairport Harbor public water system.
- The original 1913 intake was abandoned in 2010 after sand and zebra mussels clogged it, and divers capped its 1950s successor in January 2021.
History5
- 1896Painesville's water treatment plant was established, drawing from Lake Erie.
- 1913A 24-inch intake extending 1,200 feet into Lake Erie was built; it was abandoned in 2010 after sand and zebra mussel infestation.
- 2008A Water Pollution Control Loan Fund upgrade improved aeration control, clarifiers, tertiary filtration, grit removal and odor control at the WPCP.
- 2020A new 60-inch intake extending 4,000 feet into Lake Erie came online; divers capped the 1950s 36-inch intake in January 2021.
- 2021A powdered activated carbon feed able to dose over 40 ppm at full 7.5 MGD capacity went online in July to remove algal toxins.
Treatment & pressure
How it is treated
Lake Erie water treated at the 7.5 MGD Headlands Road plant (3.43 MGD average in 2025): filtration, chlorine disinfection, fluoridation and TOC removal for byproduct control, plus a powdered activated carbon feed added in 2021 to strip algal toxins.
Water pressure
No psi published; four pressure zones span ground elevations of 583-1,150 feet, served by three towers, a standpipe, an above-ground tank and five pump stations.
What it costs
$4.43 per 1,000 gallons
2026 in-city rate $3.31 per 100 cubic feet (748 gal), unchanged from 2025; outside city $4.93. Plus a $14.00 monthly improvement fee on a 5/8-inch meter.
Water quality & impurities8
| Contaminant | Level | Limit | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total Trihalomethanes (TTHM) Chlorination byproduct; quarterly sampling, range 20.9-61.9 ppb; no violation. | 51.8 ppb | 80 | 2025 |
| Haloacetic Acids (HAA5) Chlorination byproduct; range 10.8-28.7 ppb; no violation. | 23.1 ppb | 60 | 2025 |
| Nitrate Monthly sampling; range 0.0-0.71 ppm, well under the MCL. | 0.71 ppm | 10 | 2025 |
| Fluoride Added for dental health; range 0.79-1.01 ppm. | 1.00 ppm | 4 | 2025 |
| Chlorine (residual disinfectant) Continuous monitoring; range 1.29-1.54 ppm. | 1.47 ppm | 4 (MRDL) | 2025 |
| Turbidity Range 0.03-0.20 NTU, highest single reading 0.23; 100% of samples met the limit. | 0.20 NTU | 0.3 (TT) | 2025 |
| Lead (90th percentile) 30 samples; all below the 2 ppb detection limit, 0 of 30 above the action level. | 0 ppb | 15 (action… | 2024 |
| Copper (90th percentile) 30 samples; none exceeded the action level. | 0.09 ppm | 1.3 (action… | 2024 |
EPA compliance record · Fairport Harbor Village
Lead at the tap: 90th-percentile result 0 ppb in 2025 (action level 15 ppb).
EPA health-based violations since 2015:
- 2021Chlorine residual (SWTR) · treatment technique violation · returned to compliance
3 violations of any kind logged since 2020, 2 of them paperwork (monitoring, reporting, public notice or consumer report).
EPA compliance record · Painesville City (treats the water)
Lead at the tap: 90th-percentile result 0 ppb in 2024 (action level 15 ppb).
EPA record: no health-based violations since 2015.
1 violation of any kind logged since 2020, 1 of them paperwork (monitoring, reporting, public notice or consumer report).
Projects & plans5
Recent and current work
- New 60-inch Lake Erie raw water intake · 2020 · completed
Extends 4,000 feet into Lake Erie for redundancy and algal-bloom protection; a 2015 Ohio EPA fact sheet estimated $10-12M on a 0% WSRLA loan. - Powdered activated carbon feed system · 2021 · completed
Online July 2021; doses over 40 ppm at the plant's full 7.5 MGD capacity to remove algal toxins from Lake Erie influent. - Water Pollution Control Plant tertiary and aeration upgrade · 2008 · completed
Ohio Water Pollution Control Loan Fund financed clarifier mechanisms, filter media, aeration and grit controls, polymer feed, generator and odor control. - Chlorine room reconstruction, Phase 1 · 2025 · completed
Phase 1 finished in 2025 alongside installation of the #6 high-service pump natural gas engine and a sludge truck replacement. - West Eagle and East Walnut Street water main replacements · 2025 · completed
Distribution renewal completed in 2025 along with structural steel repairs and painting of the Crile water tower.
Supply stress
Lake Erie is not scarcity-limited, but harmful algal blooms have reached the Headlands Beach area, driving the deeper 4,000-foot intake and the 2021 powdered carbon system; no microcystins were detected in 2025. Sand, zebra mussels and frazil ice fouled the earlier intakes.
Sewers
Sanitary
City-run Water Pollution Control Plant at 1170 N. State St. serves about 20,000 people in five stages - preliminary, primary, secondary, tertiary sand filtration and disinfection - discharging to the Grand River, and has taken trucked septage since 2004. No CSO or consent decree found.
Storm
not documented in sources reviewed
Sourcesverified
Compiled from the utility's own reports and public records, then independently re-checked against primary sources.
Present in 1 ZIP code
Serves
No ZIP code has Fairport Harbor Village on record as its main water supplier.
Also present in 1 more ZIP code
- 44077 · Painesville4% 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
Fairport Harbor Village buys its water from Painesville City.
No other system is on record buying water from Fairport Harbor Village.
On the map
Show this system's territory on the map — 1 ZIP code 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