Oberlin Water Department

• Oberlin built the first municipal lime-soda water softening plant in America in 1903, at the Morgan Street Water Works. The site is now a city park, and the reservoir beside it is being reshaped into a wetland.
• The 1886 water works bond was $50,000 — roughly $925,000 today, and about eight years of the town's typical spending. Within a year the Water Works was the second-largest line in the town budget, behind only the Street…
• Voters approved the system 437 to 100 in April 1886, after downtown fires in 1882 and 1886; the fire chief's verdict on 1882 was that the water "gave out entirely."
• Oberlin's 2025 TTHM running average of 74.68 ppb is within 7% of the federal 80 ppb limit, with individual samples as high as 121.8 ppb — the price of disinfecting organic-rich river water.
• The plant softens Oberlin's water to about 160 mg/L, or 9.3 grains per gallon, and adds phosphate for corrosion control; the most recent lead round came back at a 90th percentile of zero.

Source: oberlinheritagecenter.orgwww2.oberlin.educityofoberlin.com

• 1882A fire on March 10 burned through a downtown block; the fire chief reported that the water supply "gave out entirely," exposing the town's lack of firefighting water.
• 1886After a second devastating downtown fire that spring, voters approved a $50,000 water works bond 437 to 100 in April. The reservoir built about a mile southwest of town covered ten acres at 16 feet…
• 1887Water service inaugurated December 23. By that year the Water Works was already the town's second-largest budget item, behind only the Street Department.
• 1888First major fire test of the new system; the local press reported the water works a success.
• 1903Oberlin installed the first municipal lime-soda water softening plant in America at the Morgan Street Water Works, softening water conveyed from the Vermilion River by way of the Kipton Reservoir.…
• 1960A new plant on Parsons Road drawing from the Black River replaced the Morgan Street works; the Morgan Street and Kipton reservoirs left drinking-water service in the early 1960s.

Source: www2.oberlin.eduoberlinheritagecenter.orgcityofoberlin.com

How it is treated

Surface water from the West Branch of the Black River, supplemented by the city's reservoir and two elevated storage tanks, is treated at the 2.25 MGD plant at 43885 Parsons Road. The train is coagulation with aluminum sulfate and settling, lime-and-soda-ash softening (finished hardness about 160…

Source: cityofoberlin.comcityofoberlin.com

Water pressure

Not published. The city documents over 40 miles of water line serving roughly 3,000 homes and businesses, a 2.25 MGD plant and two elevated storage tanks, but publishes no system…

Source: cityofoberlin.com

$15.84 per 1,000 gallons

Typical household bill about $79 a month for water.

Water only. Effective 2/1/2026, inside city: $11.85 per 100 cubic feet, with a minimum monthly bill of $35.55 based on minimum usage of 300 cubic feet (there is no separate fixed…

Source: cityofoberlin.com

Source: cityofoberlin.com

EPA compliance record

Lead at the tap: 90th-percentile result 0 ppb in 2023 (action level 15 ppb).

EPA health-based violations since 2015:

• 2024Total coliform · treatment technique violation · returned to compliance
• 2017Total trihalomethanes (TTHM) · exceeded a maximum contaminant level · measured 0.081 MG/L (limit 0.08 MG/L) · returned to compliance

1 violation of any kind logged since 2020, 0 of them paperwork (monitoring, reporting, public notice or consumer report).

Recent and current work

• Morgan Street Reservoirs restructuring and wetland conversion · $300,000 · 2020 · under construction
  City-commissioned Alternatives Analysis Report dated 09/21/2020. Council approved converting the upper rectangular reservoir into a wetland with paths and…

Source: oberlinreview.orgchroniclet.comcityofoberlin.com

Ohio EPA's 2002 source water assessment, still cited in the 2026 CCR, treats all Ohio surface waters as susceptible to contamination: they are accessible, easily contaminated, and move fast enough that an upstream spill can reach the intake with little warning. Oberlin's protection area holds a moderate number of potential contaminant…

Source: cityofoberlin.comcityofoberlin.com

Sanitary

The city's Water Environment Protection Facility is a 1.5 MGD Class IV plant using physical, chemical and biological treatment, discharging to Plum Creek; Class B biosolids are land-applied to agricultural ground at agronomic rates. Sanitary sewer is billed separately from water: inside city $7.61 per 100 cubic feet with a $22.83 monthly…

Storm

Not documented in the city sources reviewed.

Source: cityofoberlin.comcityofoberlin.com

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