Amherst City

• Amherst sits 2.5 miles from Lake Erie and still owns no piece of the lake: it buys every gallon finished from two neighboring cities rather than building an intake of its own.
• The 'Elyria' water plant that supplies part of Amherst is not in Elyria - it is an Elyria-owned plant at 3628 West Erie Avenue inside the City of Lorain.
• Amherst's water bill has a line item, the Water Supply Cost, that changes every single month because it is a straight pass-through of what Lorain and Elyria charge that month.
• The posted Amherst rate schedule still carries an effective date of January 1, 2015 - the fixed part of the bill has not been re-legislated in a decade; the variable WSC does the moving.
• Before it was a Cleveland-area suburb, Amherst billed itself as the 'Sandstone Center of the World,' and the quarrying motto is still the city's.

Source: amherstohio.orgamherstohio.orgen.wikipedia.org

• 1811Pioneer settler Jacob Shupe arrived in the area that became Amherst; the downtown area was settled by Josiah Harris in 1818.
• 1836Village plat recorded as the 'town plat of Amherst'; it became 'Amherstville' around 1839, then 'North Amherst', and finally 'Amherst' again in 1909.
• late 1800sAmherst became known as the 'Sandstone Center of the World' on the strength of its quarrying industry.
• 2015Current water rate schedule took effect January 1, 2015: $6.58 for the first 3,000 gallons inside city, then $3.02 per 1,000 gallons plus the WSC surcharge.
• 2026City distributed its 2025 Consumer Confidence Report, stating it is a purchase surface water system buying all of its water from the cities of Lorain and Elyria and holding a current, unconditional…

Source: en.wikipedia.orgamherstohio.orgamherstohio.org

How it is treated

Amherst treats no water of its own. It is a consecutive (purchase) surface water system that buys finished Lake Erie water from the City of Lorain and the City of Elyria and distributes it; its CCR carries Amherst's own distribution-system sampling plus the reports of both suppliers. The plants…

Source: amherstohio.org

Water pressure

Not published. Neither Amherst's utilities pages nor its CCR give service pressures, pressure zones, or storage figures.

Source: amherstohio.orgamherstohio.org

$3.02 per 1,000 gallons

City of Amherst published rate schedule, effective January 1, 2015. Inside city: $6.58 covers the first 3,000 gallons, then $3.02 per 1,000 gallons PLUS a 'Water Supply Cost'…

Source: amherstohio.orgdam.assets.ohio.gov

Source: amherstohio.org

EPA compliance record

Lead at the tap: 90th-percentile result 2.5 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).

EPA compliance record · Elyria Water Department (treats the water)

Lead at the tap: 90th-percentile result 0 ppb in 2025 (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).

Supply volume is not a constraint - Lake Erie is 2.5 miles away and effectively inexhaustible - but Amherst has no plant, no raw water source and no independent production capacity at all: 100% of its water is purchased finished from two upstream utilities, Lorain and Elyria. Everything that happens at those plants passes straight…

Source: amherstohio.orgamherstohio.orgen.wikipedia.org

Sanitary

Billed by the city's Utilities Department on metered water consumption, with a published minimum of $30.32/month inside the city and $45.48/month outside. Amherst does not publish the name, capacity or receiving stream of the treating plant on its utilities or rate pages; Ohio EPA's 2023 rate survey lists Amherst as providing sewer…

Storm

No separate stormwater utility fee appears on the city's published water and sewer rate schedule. The Utilities Department maintains stormwater education pages, consistent with routine MS4 public-outreach obligations, but no fee, permit detail or program…

Source: amherstohio.orgdam.assets.ohio.govamherstohio.org

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