Aqua Ohio - Tiffin

• Tiffin is one of the few Ohio cities of its size whose tap water comes from an investor-owned utility: Aqua Ohio bought the system from Ohio American Water in May 2012, so water rates are set by the Public Utilities…
• Aqua Ohio's report states plainly that the company does not hold regular public meetings on drinking water quality - customers with concerns are pointed to a call center, the PUCO, or the Ohio Consumers' Counsel.
• Individual trihalomethane samples in 2025 reached 101.2 ppb, above the 80 ppb standard, even though the running average that determines compliance came in at 70.2 ppb.
• The Sandusky River both supplies Tiffin's intake and receives the city's combined sewer overflows - the wastewater plant's $27 million high-rate filtration project is aimed at cutting those overflows to four a year by…
• In a rate case where a 'Seneca' service area appears on the state consumer advocate's chart, that line is Lake Seneca in Williams County, not Tiffin in Seneca County; Tiffin bills under the former Ohio American Water…

Source: prod.aquawater.comessential.coocc.ohio.gov

• 1913The Great Flood of 1913 on the Sandusky River devastated Tiffin - the same river that supplies the city's drinking water intake.
• 2003Ohio EPA completed the source water assessment for the Tiffin system; the source is rated highly susceptible to contamination, with the single rating driven by the surface water intake rather than…
• 2012Aqua Ohio purchased the Tiffin water system from Ohio American Water in May 2012, as part of Aqua America's acquisition of all of American Water's regulated Ohio operations (about 50,730 water…
• 2023Aqua replaced 90-year-old cast iron mains on Grand Avenue, Fifth Avenue and Huss Street with ductile iron - a $1,324,000 contract, part of roughly $3.1 million invested in Tiffin that year.
• 2025Aqua Ohio filed PUCO case 25-0594-WW-AIR (June 30, 2025) seeking $13.4 million, or 16.4%, more annual water revenue across its rate-regulated Ohio systems.
• 2026PUCO issued its order June 10, 2026, authorizing about $9.5 million rather than the $13.4 million requested and rejecting Aqua's proposed increase to the fixed monthly customer charge; the resulting…

Source: prod.aquawater.comessential.cotiffinohio.gov

How it is treated

Aqua Ohio treats Sandusky River water at its Tiffin plant, with five groundwater wells supplementing or backing up the river supply. The 2025 CCR documents conventional surface-water treatment: filtration monitored by turbidity (limit 0.3 NTU in 95% of daily samples; Tiffin's highest 2025 reading…

Source: prod.aquawater.comprod.aquawater.com

$15.67 per 1,000 gallons

Typical household bill about $77 a month for water.

Tiffin falls in Aqua Ohio's PUCO Tariff No. 2 Rate Group 3 (systems formerly served by Ohio American Water, which Aqua bought in May 2012). Effective July 22, 2026 under the…

Source: dam.assets.ohio.govocc.ohio.govpuco.ohio.gov

Source: prod.aquawater.com

EPA compliance record

Lead at the tap: 90th-percentile result 5.4 ppb in 2025 (action level 15 ppb).

EPA record: no health-based violations since 2015.

Recent and current work

• Grand Avenue / Fifth Avenue / Huss Street water main replacement · $1.3 million · 2023 · completed
  Replaced 90-year-old 6- and 10-inch cast iron with 2,550 feet of 8- and 12-inch ductile iron on Grand Ave, a 12-inch on Fifth Ave, and 2,355 feet of 12-inch on…
• Tiffin Water Pollution Control Center capacity upgrade (city project, not Aqua) · 2021 · completed
  Raised treatable flow from 4 MGD to 13 MGD with a new 80-foot secondary clarifier and a 13-million-gallon equalization basin, under the 2017 long-term control…

Source: tiffinohio.govtiffinohio.gov

Planned or needed

• AquaStorm high-rate cloth-media filtration at the city's Water Pollution Control Center · $27 million · 2026-2028 · planned
  Bid awarded to Adena; construction expected to start within months of the mid-2026 council briefing and the system online by July 2028. Treats up to 32 MGD…
• Ongoing Aqua Ohio system investment · 2026 · planned
  Aqua's 2025 CCR states the company invested nearly $559 million in Ohio water systems from 2015-2025 and plans roughly $61 million statewide in 2026; no…

Source: tiffinohio.netprod.aquawater.com

A single river intake on the Sandusky, backed by five wells, in an agricultural watershed that Ohio EPA rates highly susceptible to contamination - the listed threats include agricultural runoff, construction runoff, oil and gas production, unsewered areas, wastewater discharges, landfills and commercial sources. The pressure shows up in…

Source: prod.aquawater.comtiffinohio.gov

Sanitary

Sanitary sewer and treatment are run by the City of Tiffin's Water Pollution Control Center at 961 N. Water St. - a separate utility from Aqua's water system. Tiffin discharged raw sewage to the Sandusky River until a primary plant was built in 1955; secondary treatment and sludge filtration followed in 1964, a third digester and…

Storm

Tiffin has a combined sewer system: stormwater and sanitary flow share pipes, and overflows discharge to the Sandusky River. The long-term control plan targets no more than four combined sewer overflow activations per year, and the city publishes an annual…

Source: tiffinohio.govtiffinohio.net

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