Perry County Tribune:
Where Does Your Water Come From?
This article, written by Ben Carpenter, was first published in The Perry County Tribune on March 28, 2017.
Many folks across Perry County Perry County get their water from their own water well or spring. But in this article, we are going to take a look a “municipal” water supplies throughout the county.
There are three villages that have their own water supply and their own water treatment plants. New Lexington and Somerset both get their water from above ground surface water lakes or “water reservoirs”. The village of Thornville gets their water supply from wells, drawing from ground water, that collects in an underground reservoir.
The village of Glenford water comes from the Thornville system. All the other villages in the county, Junction City, Crooksville, Shawnee, Corning, New Straitsville, Hemlock, parts of Roseville and the unincorporated areas of the county get their municipal water from the same single source. That single source is the Burr Oak Regional Water District. (BORWD)
There are several water distribution systems throughout the county. The Northern Perry Water District, the Southern Perry Water District, Old Straitsville Water Association, and Portersville East Branch Water Company. These are all water distribution Districts that serve a primary role to provide retail water to people and business throughout their area.
These water Districts do not produce or treat water, they purchase their water from their wholesale bulk water supplier the BORWD. The BORWD does provide some retail water to residential customers, but their primary function is whole sale water supply.
The BORWD took over as a water treatment and supply entity from ODNR at the Tom Jenkins Dam which originally pulled the water supply from Burr Oak Lake. In 2011 the BORWD completed a 13.8 million dollar project to build a new ground water treatment plant in Millfield (Athens County). Perry County is a member of the BORWD and has a representative on the Board. In February the RORWD sold 47,978.632 gallons of water through 18 Satellite distributors in Perry, Athens, Hocking and Morgan Counties.
The Perry County Commissioner’s oversee the Northern Perry Water District and are actively working to continue to identity areas of the County that do not have municipal water. Our primary goal is to get water to those residents that want and need water, while working with neighboring water districts to make municipal water available in the quickest and most cost-effective way possible. Due to the extreme expense of designing and installing new lines, applying for all possible grants is a necessity for the County to complete expansion projects and maintain the functional and balanced budget that is required.
There has been a great deal of work done to identify the people that want and need water, anyone that needs municipal water can contact the commissioner’s office anytime to insure we have your property location identified.
Open Public comment periods on any topic are set aside for the Perry County Commissioners the third Thursday of each month, 1:00-1:30pm Contact the Perry County Commissioners at 740-342-2045.
