Western Water Company

• Not-for-profit and customer-owned: customers elect a five-member board of trustees, and 23 employees run a system spanning more than 400 square miles and roughly 1,000 miles of pipe.
• Its four-county territory covers about 24 townships and includes an ODOT I-71 rest area, an ODNR facility, and the Ohio Historical Society's Fort Ancient site.
• It keeps metered emergency interconnections with seven neighbors: Blanchester, Clermont County, Lake Lorelei, Loveland, Brown County Rural Water, Cincinnati and Wilmington.
• USDA has financed the company since its 1976 founding; the 2023 loan of $7.5 million is paying for PFAS treatment serving nearly 50,000 rural residents.

• 1976Western Water Company founded as a non-profit, customer-owned rural system serving Brown, Clermont, Clinton and Warren counties, with USDA financing from the start.
• 2021Sampled under Ohio's PFAS Sampling Initiative; PFAS were detected in the drinking water but below the action level set by Ohio EPA.
• 2023USDA Rural Development obligated a $7.5 million Water and Waste Disposal loan to expand the Morrow treatment plant for PFAS removal.
• 2024USDA and company officials celebrated the loan in Morrow on April 25; the expansion was scheduled to begin in 2025 and finish in 2026.
• 2025System held an unconditional license to operate and reported no MCL violations in its 2025 water quality report.

How it is treated

Western Water treats its own well water at its Morrow plant, drawing the Little Miami River valley aquifer from one well field of eight wells (51%), and blends it with finished water bought from Greater Cincinnati Water Works (49%). Chlorinated and fluoridated.

Water pressure

Not published. The company's FAQ cites 60 psi only as a reference pressure in a worked example of leak losses, not as a stated system average.

$7.00 per 1,000 gallons

$7.00 per 1,000 gallons above the monthly minimum; minimum bill $35 (5/8-in meter, includes 2,000 gal) to $3,500 (4-in); $60 membership fee. Rate page, 2026.

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.

4 violations of any kind logged since 2020, 4 of them paperwork (monitoring, reporting, public notice or consumer report).

EPA compliance record · Cincinnati Public Water System (treats the water)

Lead at the tap: 90th-percentile result 2.1 ppb in 2026 (action level 15 ppb).

EPA record: no health-based violations since 2015.

Recent and current work

• Morrow water treatment plant expansion (USDA Rural Development loan) · $7.5 million · 2025-2026 · under construction
  USDA loan obligated 2023 to add PFAS removal ahead of the 2024 federal PFAS rule; work set to begin 2025 and finish in 2026.

PFAS is the main pressure: the $7.5M plant expansion exists to meet the 2024 federal PFAS limits. Capacity is the other constraint - management says it is always hunting new well fields with enough volume. Half the supply is purchased finished water from Cincinnati, giving some source diversity.

Sanitary

Water only - Western Water Company is not a sewer utility and its materials describe no wastewater service. Sewage in its rural four-county service area is handled by others (villages, county districts or on-site septic systems); this was not verified village by village.

Storm

Not published. No stormwater utility or fee appears in the company's materials; stormwater in its rural service area falls to the counties, townships and villages.

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