Hecla Water Association

• Hecla Water was founded in 1969 by laundromat owner John Howard and eight neighbors, fed up with the area's water quality; the nine of them signed the incorporation papers.
• It grew from roughly 700 original taps to nearly 10,000 connections, and its eight-well field now pumps over two million gallons a day.
• Even though its own wells meet nearly all demand, Hecla keeps a standing tie to Ironton's 1993 Ohio River plant - under 1% of daily supply, feeding only the Coryville and Porter Gap areas.
• Hecla added its first water-softening step only in the last quarter of 2025, after decades of naturally hard groundwater averaging about 9 grains per gallon.

• 1969Hecla Water Association is incorporated after laundromat owner John Howard and eight neighbors organize over poor local water quality.
• 1969The new association starts with about 700 taps, buying its water from the City of Ironton and the Village of Coal Grove.
• 1980Hecla builds its own treatment plant and well field above Proctorville in the Ohio River Valley Aquifer, becoming largely self-sufficient.
• 1993Ironton builds an Ohio River surface-water plant (~1.74 MGD) that Hecla still uses as a secondary and emergency source.
• 2025Hecla adds a water-softening step in the fourth quarter; 1 of 60 lead samples exceeds the action level in the Jul-Dec testing cycle.

How it is treated

Eight wells in the Ohio River Valley Aquifer along SR 7 near Athalia pump over 2 MGD, treated by sand filtration, fluoridation and chlorination, plus a softening step added in Q4 2025. Ironton's 1993 Ohio River plant (pre-sedimentation, upflow clarification, filtration, chlorination) is a backup.

Water pressure

No system-wide figure is published, but Hecla's customer-service materials say normal residential pressure should be 50-65 psi and that customer-installed pressure reducers be set…

$16.40 per 1,000 gallons

2025 rates: minimum bill $25.15 (District 1) to $27.15 (District 7) covering the first 1,500 gallons a month, then $16.40 per 1,000 gallons in every district.

EPA compliance record

Lead at the tap: 90th-percentile result 1.3 ppb in 2025 (action level 15 ppb).

EPA record: no health-based violations since 2015.

EPA compliance record · Ironton (treats the water)

Lead at the tap: 90th-percentile result 1.1 ppb in 2025 (action level 15 ppb).

EPA health-based violations since 2015:

• 2024Lead and Copper Rule (lead) · treatment technique violation · returned to compliance

13 violations of any kind logged since 2020, 12 of them paperwork (monitoring, reporting, public notice or consumer report).

Recent and current work

• Water softening treatment addition · 2025 · completed
  Softening process implemented in the last quarter of 2025 to cut natural groundwater hardness.
• Lead service line inventory · 2025 · completed
  Found no lead, galvanized-requiring-replacement or unknown-material lines, using records, parts inventory, visual inspections and as-builts.

Ohio EPA rates the well field moderately susceptible: the sand-and-gravel water table starts about 40 feet down under only 15-25 feet of sandy clay, and eight potential contaminant sources sit in the protection area - SR 7, the Ohio River, home septic systems, an auto body shop, fuel-storage commercial sites and a salvage yard. No…

Sanitary

Hecla Water Association supplies drinking water only and operates no sanitary sewers. Incorporated villages in its service area, such as Chesapeake and Proctorville, run their own systems; the rural and unincorporated parts around Pedro, Kitts Hill and Waterloo are generally on individual septic systems.

Storm

No centralized stormwater utility was identified for this largely rural Lawrence County service area; drainage outside the villages is by natural topography and roadside ditches.

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