Water system
Licking Regional Water District
EPA ID OH4505412 · Licking County · 17,818 people served
Licking Regional Water District treats its own water from Raccoon Creek Valley aquifer (local wells).
The system's record
- Aquifer
- South Fork Licking River buried-valley aquifer (York Road wellfield)
- Active wells
- 12
- Serves
- 17,818 people · Licking County
- EPA ID
- OH4505412
About this area's water
Did you know
- The aquifer LRWD pumps from sits less than 10 feet below the ground surface with no protective clay layer above it, which is why Ohio EPA rates it highly susceptible to contamination.
- LRWD softens its water with nano-filtration membranes, a step more often associated with bottled-water plants than with small municipal systems.
- The district kept the name Southwest Licking Community Water and Sewer District for 35 years, until a Licking County judge approved the rename on November 7, 2024.
- The district's new test wells in St. Albans Township target the same Raccoon Creek Valley aquifer that already supplies Granville and Alexandria, which is why those villages have fought the expansion.
- LRWD holds three emergency interconnections (Fairfield County Utilities, Jefferson Water and Sewer District and the City of Pataskala) but reported drawing no water through any of them in the reported year.
Source: lickingregionalwater.govlickingregionalwater.govlickingregionalwater.gov
History6
- 1989District established as the Southwest Licking Community Water and Sewer District to address environmental problems in Etna, Harrison and Lima townships (Lima Township is now part of the City of…
- 2001 and…Phase 1A and Phase 1B expansions of the Gale Road Environmental Control Facility completed, adding pumping, screening, aeration and solids-processing capacity.
- 2010District enters the State Route 161 corridor agreement with the Licking County Commissioners covering water and sewer service in the growth corridor.
- 2022Commissioners amend the 2010 SR 161 agreement, expanding the district's service area from about 8,000 to 18,182 acres (11,702 acres in Jersey Township, 3,439 in St. Albans, 3,041 in Monroe). Officials from…
- 2024Licking County Court of Common Pleas approves the renaming to Licking Regional Water District on November 7 and expands the Board of Trustees with a Jersey Township representative and an at-large…
- 2026District solicits drilling bids and begins test wells on Reeves family farmland northwest of Alexandria in St. Albans Township, seeking new utility-scale groundwater in the Raccoon Creek Valley…
Source: lickingregionalwater.govlickingregionalwater.govlickingregionalwater.gov
Treatment & pressure
How it is treated
One treatment plant at 8675 York Road, Pataskala, serving Etna Township, Harrison Township and parts of Pataskala, rated at 3 million gallons per day and delivering about 1.4 MGD to roughly 6,700 water customers. Groundwater comes from six wells located adjacent to the plant. Chlorine is added to…
Source: lickingregionalwater.govlickingregionalwater.gov
Water pressure
No psi figure or pressure-zone map is published. The district states that two 1,000,000-gallon elevated tanks and one 400,000-gallon tank, plus a booster station, provide system…
What it costs
$6.57 per 1,000 gallons
Typical household bill about $35 a month for water.
Effective March 1, 2026 (a 6.5% increase on water and sewer): water minimum $22.29/month covering 0-2,000 gallons; $6.57 per 1,000 gallons for 2,001-40,000 gallons; $8.59 per…
Source: lickingregionalwater.gov
Water quality & impurities10
| Contaminant | Level | Limit | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fluoride Naturally occurring plus fluoride added to meet Ohio's minimum. No violation. | 0.981 (range… ppm | MCL 4 | 2025 |
| Barium No violation. | 0.040 ppm | MCL 2 | 2024 |
| Nickel Unregulated; erosion of natural deposits. | 1.07 ppb | no MCL | 2024 |
| Gross alpha emitters No violation. | 0.344 pCi/L | MCL 15 | 2024 |
| Combined radium No violation. | 0.532 pCi/L | MCL 5 | 2024 |
| Haloacetic acids (HAA5) Chlorination by-product; well under the limit. | 5.55 (range… ppb | MCL 60 | 2025 |
| Total trihalomethanes (TTHM) Chlorination by-product; well under the limit. | 13.0 (range… ppb | MCL 80 | 2025 |
| Total chlorine Residual disinfectant. | 1.03 (range… ppm | MRDL 4 | 2025 |
| Lead Sampled June-September 2025; 0 of 30 samples over the action level. | <2.0 (90th… ppb | AL 15 | 2025 |
| Copper Sampled June-September 2025; 0 of 30 samples over the action level. | 0.072 (90th… ppm | AL 1.3 | 2025 |
Source: lickingregionalwater.govlickingregionalwater.gov
EPA compliance record
Lead at the tap: 90th-percentile result 0 ppb in 2025 (action level 15 ppb).
EPA record: no health-based violations since 2015.
Projects & plans7
Recent and current work
- SR 161 corridor water and sewer extension · 2010 · completed
Agreement with Licking County commissioners letting the district extend water and sewer along the State Route 161 growth corridor; amended and greatly enlarged… - Gale Road Environmental Control Facility, Phases 1A and 1B · 2001 and… · completed
Wastewater plant expansions adding pumping capacity, screening, aeration and solids processing. No cost published. - Lead service line inventory · 2024 · completed
Federally required inventory submitted by October 2024; the district reports no lead, no galvanized-requiring-replacement, and no unknown-material service…
Source: lickingregionalwater.govnews.yahoo.comlickingregionalwater.gov
Planned or needed
- New groundwater wells, St. Albans Township · 2026 · under construction
Test wells being drilled on farmland northwest of Alexandria after a preliminary site investigation; engineers will run continuous high-volume pump tests to… - St. Albans Township water treatment facility · 2026 · proposed
District has plans for a water treatment facility in St. Albans Township, south of Alexandria and west of Granville. No cost or design capacity published. - Raccoon Creek Wastewater Treatment Center · 2026 · planned
Wastewater (not drinking water) plant west of Granville. The district states an Ohio EPA permit has already cleared the way for its construction, and that the… - Pet Run Wastewater Treatment Plant · 2026 · proposed
Smaller wastewater plant in St. Albans Township near Alexandria, described by the district as proposed rather than under construction. The Ohio Environmental…
Source: thereportingproject.orglickingregionalwater.govthereportingproject.org
Supply stress
Ohio EPA's source water assessment rates the district's aquifer as HIGHLY SUSCEPTIBLE to contamination, on three grounds stated in the 2025 CCR: no protective clay layer over the aquifer, a shallow water table less than 10 feet below ground surface, and significant potential contaminant sources inside the protection area. On the supply…
Source: lickingregionalwater.govlickingregionalwater.govthereportingproject.org
Sewers
Sanitary
LRWD is also the sanitary sewer utility for its service area. It operates the Gale Road Environmental Control Facility at 8720 Gale Road, permitted at 4.3 million gallons per day, discharging to the South Fork of the Licking River. The collection system runs more than 160 miles of sanitary sewer with 43 pump stations; the plant uses an…
Storm
Not published. The district's materials describe a sanitary (not combined) collection system; no stormwater utility or fee was found for LRWD.
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
- 43018 · Etna Township and Etna87% of residents
- 43033 · Kirkersville81% of residents
- 43062 · Pataskala54% of residents
Also present in 3 more ZIP codes
- 43023 · Granville11% of residents
- 43068 · Reynoldsburg3% of residents
- 43004 · Columbus and Blacklick0% 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
Licking Regional Water District does not buy water from another system on record; it treats its own source water.
No other system is on record buying water from Licking Regional Water District.
What the records show about Licking Regional Water District
Who runs it
EPA's record says Licking Regional Water District has 7,054 service connections and serves 17,818 people.
EPA classes it as a community water system, one that serves the same residents all year.
EPA's record says it has substantially implemented source water protection under Ohio's program, dating the program from 2023. Its office telephone on EPA's record is 740-927-0410.
Source: EPA Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS), water system record.
How the water is treated
EPA's treatment table registers these steps for Licking Regional Water District: aeration, corrosion control, cartridge filtration, chlorine disinfection, dechlorination, iron and manganese removal, fluoridation, and reverse osmosis.
The list is what each system registered with EPA for treatment plants EPA still shows as active, and it can lag a plant upgrade.
Source: EPA Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS) treatment table (EPA Envirofacts, pulled September 2026).
Violations
EPA's record shows no health-based violations for Licking Regional Water District since 2015.
EPA logs no violations of any kind for Licking Regional Water District since 2020.
Source: EPA Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS) violation records: health-based violations with compliance periods beginning in 2015 or later, all violations from 2020 or later (EPA Envirofacts, pulled September 2026).
Lead and copper at the tap
In the sampling period ending December 2025, the 90th-percentile lead result at Licking Regional Water District was 0 ppb, under both the current 15 ppb action level and the 10 ppb level that applies from 2027. A result of 0 means at least nine in ten of the homes sampled had no lead detected.
The highest result on file is 12.8 ppb, in the period ending December 2022.
EPA has 10 sampling periods on file for Licking Regional Water District since 2016, the first ending in 2016; 1 of the 10 periods went above 10 ppb.
Every water system has to inventory its service lines, the pipes from the main to each building. In the inventory Licking Regional Water District sent EPA, 6,916 lines are counted.
| Material | Lines |
|---|---|
| Lead | 0 |
| Galvanized, needing replacement | 0 |
| Unknown material | 0 |
| Not lead | 6,916 |
| All lines | 6,916 |
Systems sample taps in the homes most likely to have lead pipes or solder. The 90th-percentile result is the level nine in ten of the sampled homes were at or below. Lead comes mostly from service lines and house plumbing, not the source water, so a low result for the system does not clear an old house.
EPA's dashboard status for this inventory: reported all required service line types.
Source: EPA Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS) lead and copper 90th-percentile results (EPA Envirofacts), sampling periods ending 2016 or later; EPA's service line inventory dashboard, Ohio's 2026 Q2 submission.
PFAS
EPA's fifth national round of testing (UCMR 5) took 2 samples of the water entering the pipes of Licking Regional Water District in 2024 to 2025 and measured 29 PFAS. No PFAS was detected, PFOA and PFOS (federal limit 4 ng/L each) among them.
Ohio EPA's own statewide sampling tested 1 plant of Licking Regional Water District (latest sample July 2020). Not one of the six PFAS tested (PFOA, PFOS, PFHxS, PFNA, GenX and PFBS) was detected.
Ohio EPA's current sampling status map lists 1 plant of Licking Regional Water District as sampled, most recently May 2026.
PFAS are the 'forever chemicals' from firefighting foam, plating shops and non-stick coatings. Results are for water leaving the plant, not your tap.
Source: EPA UCMR 5 occurrence data (final release, August 2026); Ohio EPA statewide PFAS sampling, 2019 to 2021, and its sampling status map.
Disinfection byproducts
Chlorine that disinfects water also reacts with organic matter to form byproducts. Two groups have federal limits: total trihalomethanes (TTHM, 80 µg/L) and five haloacetic acids (HAA5, 60 µg/L), judged on running yearly averages at each sampling site.
For TTHM, the average of Licking Regional Water District's samples in 2019, the last year it was sampled, was 10.1 µg/L. The worst yearly average was 38.7 µg/L and the highest single sample was 51.2 µg/L, from 39 samples taken from 2012 to 2019.
For HAA5, the average in the last year sampled was 10.9 µg/L. The worst yearly average was 14.6 µg/L and the highest single sample was 24.8 µg/L, from 40 samples.
| Byproduct | Limit | Latest yearly average | Worst yearly average | Highest sample | Samples |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TTHM | 80 µg/L | 10.1 µg/L (2019) | 38.7 µg/L | 51.2 µg/L | 39 |
| HAA5 | 60 µg/L | 10.9 µg/L | 14.6 µg/L | 24.8 µg/L | 40 |
A yearly average of 0 means nothing was detected in that year's samples. EPA's file stops at 2019; Ohio EPA's Drinking Water Watch has newer results.
Source: EPA Six-Year Review 4 compliance monitoring data, 2012 to 2019, distribution-system samples (non-detects counted as zero).
Nitrate, arsenic and radioactivity
Nitrate: the highest of 10 samples was 0.34 mg/L (as nitrogen) in 2014; in 2019, the last year sampled, nitrate was not detected. No sample was over the limit of 10 mg/L. Nitrate above 10 is unsafe for infants.
Arsenic was not detected in 3 samples (limit 10 µg/L).
| Contaminant | Samples | Highest result | Limit | Samples over limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nitrate (as nitrogen) | 10 | 0.34 mg/L | 10 mg/L | 0 |
| Arsenic | 3 | not detected | 10 µg/L | 0 |
Measured in finished water: at the plant's entry points and in the distribution system; raw well and intake samples are left out. Non-detects count as zero.
Source: EPA Six-Year Review 4 compliance monitoring data, 2012 to 2019, finished water.
Solvents and fuels
EPA's file holds results for all six solvent and fuel compounds it checked. Benzene, carbon tetrachloride, 1,2-dichloroethane, trichloroethylene, tetrachloroethylene, and vinyl chloride were not detected in 3 samples each.
| Compound | Limit | Samples | Detected in | Highest result | Samples over limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Benzene | 5 µg/L | 3 | 0 of 3 | not detected | 0 |
| Carbon tetrachloride | 5 µg/L | 3 | 0 of 3 | not detected | 0 |
| 1,2-dichloroethane | 5 µg/L | 3 | 0 of 3 | not detected | 0 |
| Trichloroethylene (TCE) | 5 µg/L | 3 | 0 of 3 | not detected | 0 |
| Tetrachloroethylene (PCE) | 5 µg/L | 3 | 0 of 3 | not detected | 0 |
| Vinyl chloride | 2 µg/L | 3 | 0 of 3 | not detected | 0 |
"Not detected" means the lab's result was below what its method can measure, not that the compound is absent. Non-detects count as zero in the highest-result column.
Source: EPA Six-Year Review 4 compliance monitoring data, 2012 to 2019, finished water.
Farm chemicals and metals
EPA's file holds results for 8 of the nine herbicides and metals it checked. Detected: barium in 3 of 3 samples, highest 36.3 µg/L (limit 2,000). Not detected: atrazine in 2 samples, alachlor in 2 samples, chromium in 3 samples, cadmium in 3 samples, mercury in 3 samples, selenium in 3 samples, thallium in 3 samples.
| Substance | Kind | Limit | Samples | Detected in | Highest result | Samples over limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atrazine | Farm chemical | 3 µg/L | 2 | 0 of 2 | not detected | 0 |
| Alachlor | Farm chemical | 2 µg/L | 2 | 0 of 2 | not detected | 0 |
| Chromium | Metal | 100 µg/L | 3 | 0 of 3 | not detected | 0 |
| Cadmium | Metal | 5 µg/L | 3 | 0 of 3 | not detected | 0 |
| Barium | Metal | 2,000 µg/L | 3 | 3 of 3 | 36.3 µg/L | 0 |
| Mercury | Metal | 2 µg/L | 3 | 0 of 3 | not detected | 0 |
| Selenium | Metal | 50 µg/L | 3 | 0 of 3 | not detected | 0 |
| Thallium | Metal | 2 µg/L | 3 | 0 of 3 | not detected | 0 |
Non-detects count as zero in the highest-result column.
Source: EPA Six-Year Review 4 compliance monitoring data, 2012 to 2019, finished water.
Bacteria in the pipes
From 2012 to 2019, 2 of 1,132 routine total coliform samples taken in the distribution system at Licking Regional Water District tested positive (0.18%); in 2019, the last year on file, 1 of 190 did. E. coli was never found in the 256 samples tested for it.
A positive coliform test is a warning sign, not a violation by itself. E. coli is a sign that human or animal waste may have reached the water. Coliform counts are routine samples only; E. coli counts include repeat samples.
Source: EPA Six-Year Review 4 compliance monitoring data, 2012 to 2019, distribution-system presence/absence tests for total coliform and E. coli.
Fluoride
The Ohio Department of Health's report to the CDC (My Water's Fluoride) says Licking Regional Water District adjusts the fluoride level to the recommended level for preventing tooth decay.
EPA's treatment table lists fluoridation among the steps at Licking Regional Water District.
Measured fluoride: 0.94 mg/L on average at the plant's entry points in 2018 (in the range dentists aim for); samples ran from 0.84 to 1.08 mg/L across 19 samples in 2012 to 2019.
The recommended level for preventing tooth decay is 0.7 mg/L; the federal limit is 4 mg/L. The treatment list is what each system registered with EPA and can lag a plant upgrade.
Source: CDC My Water's Fluoride (fluoridation status as reported by the Ohio Department of Health, fetched September 2026); EPA Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS) treatment table; EPA Six-Year Review 4 compliance monitoring data, 2012 to 2019, entry-point fluoride samples.
Lithium
Lithium was not detected in 2 UCMR 5 samples at Licking Regional Water District, last sampled in 2025 (the method reports from 9 µg/L).
Lithium is not regulated. EPA's draft health reference level is 10 µg/L, and it occurs naturally in deep groundwater, so well systems in the northwest run highest.
Source: EPA UCMR 5 occurrence data (final release, August 2026), samples from 2023 to 2025.
How well the service area is mapped
The service area drawn on the map for Licking Regional Water District comes from the utility's own map.
Counting the people who live in the ZIP codes it overlaps, this atlas estimates 21,294 residents are inside the boundary, 120% of the 17,818 people Licking Regional Water District reports serving.
The resident count is an estimate from 2020 Census ZIP-code populations, not a count of customers.
Source: EPA Service Area Boundaries; resident estimate by this atlas from ZIP-code overlap.
Photograph
On the map
Show this system's territory on the map — 6 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
EPA's own record for this system: Enforcement and Compliance History report for OH4505412 (EPA ECHO).
Licking Regional Water District's own pages: thereportingproject.org
Notable facts: lickingregionalwater.gov, lickingregionalwater.gov, lickingregionalwater.gov, thereportingproject.org
History: lickingregionalwater.gov, lickingregionalwater.gov, lickingregionalwater.gov, news.yahoo.com
Water quality: lickingregionalwater.gov, lickingregionalwater.gov
Planned work: thereportingproject.org, lickingregionalwater.gov, thereportingproject.org
Water pressure: lickingregionalwater.gov, lickingregionalwater.gov
Capital projects: lickingregionalwater.gov, news.yahoo.com, lickingregionalwater.gov
Rates: lickingregionalwater.gov
Sewers: lickingregionalwater.gov, lickingregionalwater.gov
Treatment: lickingregionalwater.gov, lickingregionalwater.gov
Supply stress: lickingregionalwater.gov, lickingregionalwater.gov, thereportingproject.org, thereportingproject.org
