Akron City

Who runs it

EPA's record describes Akron City as owned by a local government. It has 94,791 service connections and serves 280,000 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 2025. Its office telephone on EPA's record is 330-678-0077.

Source: EPA Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS), water system record.

How the water is treated

EPA's treatment table registers these steps for Akron City: corrosion control, chlorine dioxide, coagulation and settling, chlorine disinfection, iron and manganese removal, fluoridation, powdered activated carbon, and sand or media filtration.

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 counts 1 health-based violation for Akron City since 2015. Health-based means a contaminant above its legal limit or a required treatment step not carried out. It falls into 1 separate problem (one contaminant or rule in one year); the table lists it.

EPA logs 1 violation of any kind since 2020: 1 health-based.

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 Akron City was 2.7 ppb, under both the current 15 ppb action level and the 10 ppb level that applies from 2027.

The highest result on file is 4.1 ppb, in the period ending December 2021.

EPA has 8 sampling periods on file for Akron City since 2016, the first ending in 2018; no period was above 10 ppb.

Every water system has to inventory its service lines, the pipes from the main to each building. In the inventory Akron City sent EPA, 89,061 lines are counted.

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 5 samples of the water entering the pipes of Akron City in 2023 and measured 29 PFAS.

The highest PFOA or PFOS result, 7.3 ng/L, is at or above the federal limit of 4 ng/L that EPA set in 2024. Systems have until 2029 to comply, and in May 2026 EPA proposed letting systems apply for two more years. One sample over the limit is not a violation: compliance is judged on a running annual average.

The highest PFAS results were PFOA 7.3 ng/L and PFBA 5 ng/L.

Ohio EPA's own statewide sampling tested 1 plant of Akron City (latest sample June 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 Akron City as sampled, most recently March 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 Akron City's samples in 2019, the last year it was sampled, was 59.8 µg/L. The worst yearly average was 66.4 µg/L and the highest single sample was 171 µg/L, from 384 samples taken from 2012 to 2019.

For HAA5, the average in the last year sampled was 20 µg/L. The worst yearly average was 42.7 µg/L and the highest single sample was 84.2 µg/L, from 396 samples.

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 482 samples was 0.66 mg/L (as nitrogen) in 2015; in 2019, the last year sampled, the highest was 0.5 mg/L. No sample was over the limit of 10 mg/L. Nitrate above 10 is unsafe for infants.

Arsenic: the highest of 8 samples was 1.1 µg/L (limit 10); detections averaged 1.1; none over the limit.

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 8 samples each.

"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 7 of 8 samples, highest 45 µg/L (limit 2,000). Not detected: atrazine in 11 samples, alachlor in 11 samples, chromium in 8 samples, cadmium in 8 samples, mercury in 8 samples, selenium in 8 samples, thallium in 8 samples.

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, 6 of 17,004 routine total coliform samples taken in the distribution system at Akron City tested positive (0.04%); in 2019, the last year on file, 1 of 1,928 did. E. coli was never found in the 7 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 Akron City adjusts the fluoride level to the recommended level for preventing tooth decay.

EPA's treatment table lists fluoridation among the steps at Akron City.

Measured fluoride: 1.17 mg/L on average at the plant's entry points in 2019 (in the range dentists aim for); samples ran from 0.83 to 1.17 mg/L across 8 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 4 UCMR 5 samples at Akron City, last sampled in 2023 (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.

Algal toxins

Ohio EPA tests for microcystin, a toxin that harmful algal blooms can release, in raw water at the intake and in treated water.

At the intake, microcystin was detected 30 times in 188 raw-water samples, across 4 bloom seasons (2016 to 2025); the highest raw-water result was 2.78 µg/L on June 20, 2017. The highest raw-water result since 2024 was 0.808 µg/L.

Microcystin was never detected in treated water (119 samples).

In all, 307 samples from 2016 to 2026, the latest on August 10, 2026.

The ten-day advisory levels for treated water are 0.3 µg/L for children under six and 1.6 µg/L for everyone else. Any detection at the intake triggers more frequent testing until two clean weeks.

Source: Ohio EPA public water system harmful algal bloom monitoring, 2016 to present (HAB data, fetched September 2026).

Water and sewer bills

Ohio EPA's 2023 rate survey puts the water bill at Akron City for a household using 5,000 gallons a month at $293 a year, about $24 a month.

The sewer bill in the same survey is $900 a year at 5,000 gallons a month.

The survey lists it as “Akron”. These are inside-city rates and annual bills at the use shown.

Source: Ohio EPA 2023 Sewer and Water Rate Survey (Ohio State University, May 2025).

How well the service area is mapped

The service area drawn on the map for Akron City comes from the utility's own map.

Counting the people who live in the ZIP codes it overlaps, this atlas estimates 230,767 residents are inside the boundary, 82% of the 280,000 people Akron City 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.