Water system
Medina Co/northwest
EPA ID OH5201903 · Medina County · 46,324 people served · owned by a local government
Medina Co/northwest buys its water from Rural Lorain Co. Water A.
The system's record
Also connected to New London Village (Buck Creek, impounded in New London's upground reservoir), Ashland City (Jerome Fork Basin sand-and-gravel aquifer (wells)), used as a secondary or emergency supply.
- Water bodies
- Lake Erie
- Raw intakes
- Avon Lake Lake Erie
- Serves
- 23,659 people · Lorain County
- EPA ID
- OH4700311
Avon Lake Regional Water operates two Lake Erie intakes (54" and 36") and its filtration plant on the lakeshore; it wholesales to Avon, North Ridgeville, Sheffield/Sheffield Lake, RLCWA, and the City of Medina.
About this area's water
Did you know
- This district owns no treatment plant: 46,324 people on 16,845 connections drink entirely purchased water, per EPA's SDWIS record for the system.
- RLCWA blends three unlike sources - Lake Erie via Avon Lake, a 1.4-billion-gallon reservoir at New London, and 12 Ashland wells 70 to 300 feet deep.
- Its engineers call RLCWA one of the largest rural water systems ever built in the U.S.: about 150,000 people over 520 square miles in five counties.
- The Avon Lake plant at the far end of this supply chain has been filtering Lake Erie since 1926, and began selling wholesale to RLCWA in 1975.
History5
- 1926Avon Lake's Lake Erie filtration plant goes into operation; it later becomes the wholesale source at the head of this district's supply chain.
- 1973Rural Lorain County Water Authority formed after a petition from 16 townships and 2 villages; it becomes this district's wholesale supplier.
- April 1974Lorain County Court of Common Pleas enters final judgment completing RLCWA's formation.
- 1975/1982/19…Avon Lake's utility board signs successive wholesale contracts with RLCWA, Sheffield Village and the Eastern Transmission Line consortia.
- 2023RLCWA fails to sample corrosion-control indicators at the required frequency in July-December, a monitoring violation disclosed in its own CCR.
Treatment & pressure
How it is treated
Buys finished water; no plant of its own. Supplier RLCWA's CCR says all three of its sources - Avon Lake Regional Water (Lake Erie), the New London Reservoir and Ashland's Jerome Fork wells - treat by filtration and disinfection, with fluoride added.
Water pressure
Not published for this district. Supplier RLCWA runs 19 pressure zones, 18 storage tanks and 14 pumping stations across 1,200+ miles of main (GRW).
What it costs
Medina County Sanitary Eng. sets this district's retail rate (fee schedule eff. 1/1/2026, not retrievable). Supplier RLCWA charges $9.14/1,000 gal in 2026.
Water quality & impurities8
| Contaminant | Level | Limit | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| TTHM (total trihalomethanes) Supplier RLCWA system average; range 18-79.4 ppb. Under the MCL but running close to it. | 59.1 ppb | 80 (annual avg) | 2025 |
| HAA5 (haloacetic acids) Supplier RLCWA system average; range 9.8-39.4 ppb, well under the MCL. | 31.5 ppb | 60 (annual avg) | 2025 |
| Lead (90th percentile) RLCWA 90th percentile; zero of 32 samples over the action level. | <1 ppb | 15 (action… | 2025 |
| Copper (90th percentile) RLCWA 90th percentile, far below the action level. | 0.058 ppm | 1.3 (action… | 2025 |
| TTHM (total trihalomethanes) Prior RLCWA result, range 19.2-79.8 ppb; DBPs sit near 60 ppb year after year. | 59.8 ppb | 80 (annual avg) | 2023 |
| HAA5 (haloacetic acids) Prior RLCWA result, range 7-48.6 ppb. | 38 ppb | 60 (annual avg) | 2023 |
| PFBA (perfluorobutanoic acid) PFAS breakdown product detected at the reporting limit in RLCWA water. | 0.0051 ppb | no MCL (UCMR5) | 2023 |
| Lithium Unregulated; range 11.8-15.4 ppb in RLCWA water. | 13.6 ppb | no MCL (UCMR5) | 2023 |
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.
3 violations of any kind logged since 2020, 3 of them paperwork (monitoring, reporting, public notice or consumer report).
EPA compliance record · Avon Lake City (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 stress
Wholesale-only: no source of its own, so it inherits any RLCWA or Avon Lake supply problem. Chlorinated Lake Erie water piped far through rural mains keeps TTHM near 60 ppb against an 80 ppb MCL. RLCWA also missed required corrosion-control sampling in July-December 2023.
Sewers
Sanitary
Medina County Sanitary Engineering Department runs both this water district and county sanitary sewers (three divisions, roughly 50,000 customers), so it is not a water-only utility. Treatment plant names, capacities and receiving streams were not confirmed.
Storm
Not confirmed. No county stormwater utility fee turned up in the sources reviewed, and township-level drainage was not researched for this batch.
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
- 44233 · Hinckley Township and Hinckley100% of residents
- 44280 · Liverpool Township and Valley City98% of residents
- 44256 · Medina56% of residents
Also present in 10 more ZIP codes
- 44275 · Spencer Township and Spencer31% of residents
- 44212 · Brunswick22% of residents
- 44215 · Lafayette Township and Chippewa Lake16% of residents
- 44254 · Lodi13% of residents
- 44273 · Seville11% of residents
- 44253 · Litchfield Township and Litchfield5% of residents
- 44281 · Wadsworth3% of residents
- 44333 · Bath Township and Akron1% of residents
- 44321 · Copley Township and Akron0% of residents
- 44149 · Strongsville0% 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
Medina Co/northwest buys its water from Rural Lorain Co. Water A, which buys from Avon Lake City.
No other system is on record buying water from Medina Co/northwest.
Photograph
On the map
Show this system's territory on the map — 13 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
Medina Co/northwest's own pages: rlcwa.com, cms9files.revize.com, cms9files.revize.com