Water system
Lake County West Water Subdistrict
EPA ID OH4302411 · Lake County · 78,379 people served · owned by a local government
Lake County West Water Subdistrict treats its own water from Lake Erie.
The system's record
- Water bodies
- Lake Erie
- Raw intakes
- Lake Co Lake Erie Int
- Serves
- 78,379 people · Lake County
- EPA ID
- OH4302411
West sub-district = Aquarius WTP, Willoughby (20 MGD design, ~9 MGD produced), serving Eastlake, Willoughby, Willowick, Wickliffe, Willoughby Hills, Lakeline, Timberlake. Sole intake is the 60-inch Lake Erie line ~3,100 ft offshore.
About this area's water
Did you know
- The Aquarius plant draws Lake Erie water through a 60-inch pipe reaching roughly 3,100 feet offshore -- more than half a mile out into the lake.
- Lake County's water program won the AWWA Directors Award of Recognition, one of only 8 of Ohio's 300 surface-water treatment facilities to be so honored.
- The county's water division maintains over 550 miles of water main serving more than 116,000 residents across both the East and West sub-districts.
- PFOA and PFOS were both detected in West Sub-District tap water in 2025, at 1.1 and 1.7 parts per trillion -- real detections, but well under the new 4.0 ppt federal limit.
History5
- 1964Greater Mentor wastewater plant built as a 4 MGD primary treatment plant with chemical coagulation, serving the fast-growing Mentor area.
- 1985Aquarius Water Treatment Facility opens in Willoughby as the West Sub-District's Lake Erie plant, with a 20 MGD design capacity.
- 2000Greater Mentor plant expanded to a 20 MGD activated sludge facility with 32 MGD peak design and 55 MGD hydraulic capacity.
- 2002Ohio EPA completes source water assessments for the Lake County East and West Sub-District Lake Erie intakes.
- 2015Greater Madison plant expansion completed at 5 MGD with secondary treatment and UV disinfection, able to discharge up to 15 MGD.
Treatment & pressure
How it is treated
Lake Erie water enters via a 60-inch intake about 3,100 ft offshore, passes traveling screens, rapid-mix and flocculation tanks and sedimentation basins, then dual-media anthracite-and-sand filters; it is chlorinated and fluoridated and held in a 1.17-million-gallon clear well.
Water pressure
Not published. The Aquarius plant pumps raw water at 61,500 gallons per minute, but Lake County publishes no system-wide psi figure.
What it costs
$6.26 per 1,000 gallons
Typical household bill about $18 a month for water.
$4.68 per 100 cubic feet; $42.12/quarter minimum (0-900 cf); county-published average residential bill $53.40/quarter. No effective year shown on the rates page.
Water quality & impurities8
| Contaminant | Level | Limit | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total Trihalomethanes (TTHM) Range 15.7-55.8 ppb; no violation. Byproduct of chlorination. | 46.9 ppb | 80 ppb (MCL) | 2025 |
| Haloacetic Acids (HAA5) Range 7.5-37.6 ppb; no violation. | 23.18 ppb | 60 ppb (MCL) | 2025 |
| Lead (90th percentile) Zero of 30 samples exceeded the action level. | <2.0 ppb | 15 ppb action… | 2024 |
| Copper (90th percentile) Zero of 30 samples exceeded the action level. | 0.078 ppm | 1.3 ppm action… | 2024 |
| Nitrate Range <0.10-1.68 ppm; well under the limit. | 1.68 ppm | 10 ppm (MCL) | 2025 |
| Turbidity Range 0.02-0.13 NTU; 100% of samples met the standard. | 0.13 NTU | TT: 0.3 NTU in… | 2025 |
| PFOS Detected. UCMR5 average 0.0017 ppb, range 1.2-2.1 ppt; under the federal MCL. | 1.7 ppt | 4.0 ppt (MCL) | 2025 |
| PFOA Detected. UCMR5 average 0.0011 ppb, range ND-1.6 ppt; under the federal MCL. | 1.1 ppt | 4.0 ppt (MCL) | 2025 |
EPA compliance record
Lead at the tap: 90th-percentile result 0 ppb in 2024 (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).
Supply stress
No scarcity risk on Lake Erie, but Ohio EPA's source water assessment found the Chagrin River mouth near the West Sub-District intake raises susceptibility. Listed threats: shipping and boating spills, shoreline and stream runoff, oil and gas transport, dredging sediment, and CSO discharges.
Sewers
Sanitary
Lake County DoU runs sewer separately from the water sub-districts, with 500+ miles of line. Its Gary L. Kron (formerly Greater Mentor) plant at 20 MGD and the Madison plant at 5 MGD both discharge to Lake Erie but serve central and eastern county. In the west the county runs only the Dodd Hill package plant in Willoughby Hills.
Storm
Not detailed in county sources for the West Sub-District communities, though the 2025 report does list combined sewer overflows among Lake Erie source-water threats.
Sourcesverified
Compiled from the utility's own reports and public records, then independently re-checked against primary sources.
Main supplier in 3 ZIP codes
Serves
Main water supplier in 3 ZIP codes
- 44095 · Eastlake97% of residents
- 44092 · Wickliffe92% of residents
- 44094 · Willoughby68% 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
Lake County West Water Subdistrict does not buy water from another system on record; it treats its own source water.
No other system is on record buying water from Lake County West Water Subdistrict.
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
Lake County West Water Subdistrict's own pages: lakecountyohio.gov, lakecountyohio.gov