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What the Columbus water quality report says, and what it leaves out

Columbus Water and Power publishes a water quality report every year, and federal rules require one from every community water system in the country. The current one is the 2025 Drinking Water Consumer Confidence Report: almost every result in it is labeled 2025, and lead and copper are labeled 2023. This page sets out what that report is, how its results table is built, what it found for the substances a household actually asks about, and where the city's PFAS results live, which is not in the report at all. Columbus reports plant by plant, so which of three plants serves an address decides the numbers.

Last updated September 2026 · Figures are the city's, Ohio EPA's and the federal Environmental Protection Agency's, read September 2026 · No prices on this page; the Estimate Builder carries those · Part of the knowledge base

What this report is, and what makes the city publish it

The report is not a city initiative. The Consumer Confidence Report rule in the federal drinking water regulations, at 40 CFR part 141 subpart O, requires reports that community water systems must deliver to their customers, which the Environmental Protection Agency describes as an annual water quality report. It reaches community water systems only, so a household on a private well gets no such document.

Two things in that rule explain why the year on the cover confuses people. As published in the electronic Code of Federal Regulations, it sets the delivery deadline at July 1 each year, and lets a report carry data from the previous calendar year, or the calendar year before that. A title year, a sampling year and a delivery year can therefore all differ, lawfully.

The current Columbus report is titled the 2025 Drinking Water Consumer Confidence Report and is published by Columbus Water and Power, the utility called the Department of Public Utilities until 2025. Almost every result in it is labeled 2025 in the column the report heads "When we checked", and lead and copper alone are labeled 2023. Above the results the city states its own conclusion: "Your drinking water meets all Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) standards." The Violation column beside every regulated row reads No.

One habit is about to change. The rule says community water systems must comply with its revised sections beginning January 1, 2027, and a further set beginning November 1, 2027, and that a system serving 10,000 or more persons must distribute the report biannually, or twice per calendar year, by December 31. Columbus is far above that threshold.

How to read the results table

Columbus reports plant by plant. The table carries a Level Found and a Range for each of three plants, Dublin Road, Hap Cremean and Parsons Avenue, and a service area map in the report shows which covers which part of the city; the report says the Dublin Road plant serves northwestern and southwestern residents. Which plant serves an address therefore decides which numbers apply to it, and on the sodium row the highest plant average is more than four times the lowest. Where that water starts is the water supply page. The other columns are a year, headed "When we checked"; the limit, headed "What's allowed? (MCL)"; a goal; and a Violation column. Checked against the Environmental Protection Agency's own regulations table, all eight of those limits match the federal ones, the trihalomethane limit of 80 parts per billion being the agency's 0.080 milligrams per liter; the two units differ by a factor of one thousand.

Then the part that gets quoted out of context. On two rows the top of a printed range stands above the limit while the Violation cell reads No. At Dublin Road the trihalomethane range runs 16.5 to 83.9 parts per billion against a limit of 80, beside a Level Found of 58.4; in the same plant's bromate row it runs from non-detect to 13 against a limit of 10, beside a Level Found of 2. The report prints all three together and never explains how they fit, so this page does not either. One row disagrees with itself, and it is set down here as printed: the Hap Cremean trihalomethane Level Found of 64.1 sits above the top of its own range of 22.8 to 60.3.

A second table further in, headed Average Chemical Values, reports the system as a whole in parts per million unless noted, so the same trihalomethanes appear there as 0.038 against a limit of 0.08 rather than 58.4 against 80. A reader comparing the two tables without converting will think the city contradicted itself, when 0.038 parts per million is 38 parts per billion. The report also carries the sentence that frames a page of detected substances: "The presence of contaminants does not necessarily indicate that water poses a health risk."

What the 2025 report found

The rows a household asks about, in the report's own units and words. Nothing is rounded or converted.

Substance, in the report's unitWhat the report says it isWhat the report foundWhat it says is allowed
Fluoride, parts per millionA water additive that protects teethDublin Road 0.96 (0.32-1.00); Hap Cremean 0.97 (0.80-1.00); Parsons Avenue 0.98 (0.79-1.03)4, goal 4
Nitrate, parts per millionThe Scioto River can seasonally experience elevated levels of nitrateDublin Road 6.3 (ND-6.3); Hap Cremean 1.4 (ND-1.4); Parsons Avenue ND10, goal 10
Total trihalomethanes, parts per billionA by-product of drinking water chlorinationDublin Road 58.4 (16.5-83.9); Hap Cremean 64.1 (22.8-60.3); Parsons Avenue 27.6 (22.3-34.2)80, no goal set
Total haloacetic acids, parts per billionReported beside the trihalomethanesDublin Road 22.4 (5.8-29.2); Hap Cremean 37 (4.5-41.1); Parsons Avenue 4.7 (3.1-6.6)60, no goal set
Total chlorine, parts per millionThe addition of chlorine to disinfect waterDublin Road 1.44 (1.28-1.59); Hap Cremean 1.4 (1.20-1.47); Parsons Avenue 0.97 (0.87-1.04)4, headed a maximum residual disinfectant level, goal 4
Bromate, parts per billionA by-product of drinking water ozonationDublin Road 2 (ND-13); Hap Cremean ND; Parsons Avenue, a well plant in the report's words, not applicable10, goal 0
Turbidity, nephelometric turbidity unitsThe highest recorded result for 2025 was 0.68Dublin Road 0.12 (0.00-0.12); Hap Cremean 0.68 (0.03-0.68); Parsons Avenue not applicable0.3 units in 95 percent of samples each month, never above 1
Sodium, parts per millionAn annual average, listed under other water quality parameters of interestDublin Road 69.2 (37.6-119.7); Hap Cremean 19.2 (17.7-23.7); Parsons Avenue 86.7 (77.8-102.2)No set level, no goal set
Lead, parts per billion, checked 2023Corrosion of household plumbing1.3 at the 90th percentile, 0 out of 50 sites above the action level, no violation; reported for the system, not by plantAn action level of 15, goal 0
Copper, parts per million, checked 2023Erosion of natural deposits0.049 at the 90th percentile, 0 out of 50 sites above the action levelAn action level of 1.3, goal 1.3

Every row except lead and copper is labeled 2025 in the report's year column, ND is its abbreviation for non-detect, and the middle column is its own wording. The report gives 97 percent as the lowest monthly share of samples meeting the turbidity limit.

Lead, in the report's own words

Lead and copper are the only results taken at customers' taps rather than at a plant, and they are reported as a 90th percentile, meaning nine in ten sampled taps were at or below the figure. Columbus reported lead at 1.3 parts per billion at the 90th percentile, checked 2023, against an action level of 15, with 0 out of 50 in the column counting sites found above the action level; read that 50 as a site count, because the report never states how many samples were collected. Beside those numbers the city writes that the lead concentration in the drinking water leaving its water plants is below the level of detection, and that most homes in the Columbus area do not have lead service lines. It also writes a sentence this page quotes and adds nothing to: "If present, elevated levels of lead can cause serious health problems, especially for pregnant women and young children." The report points readers to the city's service line inventory at columbus.gov/SLinventory for the material type or types recorded at their own location; what those materials are, era by era, is the supply pipes page.

A future report will be judged against a tighter number. The Environmental Protection Agency's Lead and Copper Rule Improvements lower the lead action level from 15 to 10 micrograms per liter, the same unit as parts per billion, and its regulations table ties that change to a compliance date of November 1, 2027. The same rule, the agency says, requires systems to put clear health language about the dangers of lead in these reports, to say where the system's lead service line replacement plan can be found, and requires the vast majority of systems to replace lead service lines within ten years. The 2025 Columbus report does not mention the change.

PFAS: what was set, what is proposed, and what the report does not contain

The federal half first, as the Environmental Protection Agency's own drinking water page states it today. On April 10, 2024 the agency announced the final national primary drinking water regulation for six PFAS: 4.0 parts per trillion for PFOA and PFOS, both with a goal of zero; 10 parts per trillion for PFHxS, PFNA and HFPO-DA; and a hazard index of 1 for mixtures of those three with PFBS, the sixth compound, regulated only inside that index; the Columbus report describes the same rule as five compounds alongside a hazard index. Systems were given three years to complete initial monitoring, by 2027, and five to comply, by 2029.

Then the agency moved twice. In a news release of May 14, 2025 it said it would keep the maximum contaminant levels for PFOA and PFOS, and announced its intent to rescind the regulations and reconsider the regulatory determinations for PFHxS, PFNA, HFPO-DA and the hazard index. On May 18, 2026 it announced two proposed rules: one upholding the regulation for PFOA and PFOS while offering systems an option to request two additional years, to 2031, and one that would rescind the regulations for PFHxS, PFNA and HFPO-DA. Its page on the second says the comment period closed July 20, 2026. Both are proposals; nothing read for this page says the 2024 rule has been changed, and no claim is made here about its present legal standing.

Ohio's own record for Columbus is older than all of that. Ohio EPA says its statewide round covered about 1,550 community and non-transient non-community public water systems, not every public water system in the state. Its records for the Columbus system, OH2504412, cover all three plants in October 2020, Parsons Avenue on the first, Dublin Road on the sixth and Hap Cremean on the seventh, each marked sampled, no detection. Every Columbus result is entered as less than 5.00 nanograms per liter, the same unit as parts per trillion, or less than 25.00 for GenX, so that round did not look below a floor of 5 where the federal limit is 4. That is a reading of the record rather than an Ohio EPA statement, and it is why a later, more sensitive round can report figures where this one reports none.

Ohio's action levels are not the federal limits, and the same agency's materials do not agree on them. Its PFAS action plan page carries a table headed Ohio's PFAS 2020 Action Levels, the set in force when Columbus was sampled: PFOA and PFOS above 70 parts per trillion singly or combined, GenX above 700, PFBS above 140,000, PFHxS above 140, PFNA above 21. Its fact sheet of November 2023 gives a second set, and further down the action plan page a third table, headed Ohio's PFAS 2024 Action Levels, moves all six toward the federal figures beside a note that Ohio's own PFAS rule-making is anticipated final by spring 2027. Three dated tables, one agency, and none is named here as current, because nothing read says which governs today.

Now the finding a reader came for. The 2025 Columbus report has a PFAS section, defines PFAS twice and gives the federal dates, and publishes no PFAS measurement at all; it refers readers to columbus.gov/PFAS, and asks anyone wanting a copy of the monitoring results to contact the water quality laboratory. The numbers sit instead on a one-page table headed City of Columbus UCMR 5 Monitoring Results, created in February 2025 and linked from the city's PFAS page as its finished, or tap, results. What it shows belongs in one breath with what the city says about it: at Dublin Road the PFOA row records a range of detections from non-detect to 5.3 parts per trillion, above the federal limit of 4, and a Final Level Found of 1.3 parts per trillion, and the City of Columbus states on its PFAS page that its three drinking water plants "would currently be in compliance with the regulatory requirements for PFAS." The table gives no explanation of the difference between those two figures, and none is invented here. Hap Cremean and Parsons Avenue read non-detect, as does every other regulated PFAS at all three plants.

Looking up any Ohio water system

Ohio EPA used to publish a lookup called Drinking Water Watch, and articles still send people to it. It is gone. The agency's own page, stamped October 2, 2024, says the tool it offers now, the Drinking Water Viewer, "replaces the previously used" Drinking Water Watch, and gives access to publicly available drinking water data submitted by public water systems across Ohio. Systems are identified by number as well as by name: Columbus is public water system OH2504412, the identifier Ohio EPA's own PFAS records use for all three of the city's plants. Which utility serves a given Central Ohio town is a page of its own.

What none of this says about a shower

Scope, plainly. The report measures water leaving three treatment plants and, for lead and copper alone, water at 50 sampled taps. It states that the City of Columbus is responsible for providing high-quality drinking water but cannot control the variety of materials used in plumbing components. That last clause is the pipe inside the house, the part a bathroom remodel opens up.

Two questions the report answers, and both come up in a bathroom. Asked whether a filter is needed, it answers no, and says the water delivered to a home meets all federal and state requirements. Asked about pink or dark film on regularly moist surfaces, shower tile among them, it attributes the growth to organisms carried in the air and says: "These organisms do not come from your drinking water." What moderately hard water leaves on glass is on the hardness page. This page tells nobody whether to drink the water, filter it or worry about it: its three health sentences are quoted whole and belong to the bodies that wrote them.

The short version. Columbus Water and Power publishes the report federal rules require; the current one is titled 2025, with lead and copper labeled 2023. Results are reported per plant, so the plant serving an address decides the numbers. Lead came in at 1.3 parts per billion at the 90th percentile, with 0 of 50 sites above an action level that drops from 15 to 10 on November 1, 2027. PFAS results are not in the report at all: the city publishes them separately, where a Dublin Road PFOA range reaches 5.3 parts per trillion against a Final Level Found of 1.3, and the city says its three plants would currently be in compliance.

Sources

Every figure, date and quotation on this page comes from one of these documents, read on the date given. Where two of them disagree, the page says so.

Common questions

What is the Columbus water quality report, and what year do its numbers come from?

It is the Consumer Confidence Report that federal drinking water rules require of every community water system in the country, published in Columbus by Columbus Water and Power. The current one is titled the 2025 Drinking Water Consumer Confidence Report. Almost every result in it is labeled 2025 in the report's own year column, and lead and copper alone are labeled 2023. That spread is allowed: the federal rule sets a July 1 delivery deadline each year and lets a report carry data from the previous calendar year or the one before it, so a title year, a sampling year and a delivery year can all differ.

Why does the Columbus water report say no violation next to a result above the limit?

Because the two figures in that row are different things, and the report does not explain the difference. On the Dublin Road trihalomethane row the printed range runs 16.5 to 83.9 parts per billion against a limit of 80, beside a level found of 58.4 and a violation cell reading No. The bromate row at the same plant runs from non-detect to 13 against a limit of 10, beside a level found of 2. The city prints the range, the level found and the No together and offers no account of how they fit, so no account is offered here either.

What does the Columbus water quality report say about lead?

It reports lead at 1.3 parts per billion at the 90th percentile, checked 2023, against an action level of 15, with 0 out of 50 sampled sites above that level and no violation recorded. That 50 is a site count; the report never gives a sample count. The city writes that the lead concentration in the drinking water leaving its water plants is below the level of detection, and that most homes in the Columbus area do not have lead service lines. It also writes that if present, elevated levels of lead can cause serious health problems, especially for pregnant women and young children.

Does the Columbus water quality report include PFAS results?

No. The report has a PFAS section, defines PFAS, explains the federal limits and their dates, and publishes no PFAS measurement anywhere in the document. It points readers to the city's PFAS page, and asks anyone who wants a copy of the monitoring results to contact the water quality laboratory. The numbers live on a separate one-page table headed City of Columbus UCMR 5 Monitoring Results, created in February 2025 and linked from that page as the finished, or tap, results. A reader who opens the annual report looking for a PFAS figure will not find one.

Has Ohio EPA tested Columbus water for PFAS?

Yes, in October 2020, and it has published nothing newer for Columbus. Ohio EPA's sampling records for public water system OH2504412 cover Parsons Avenue on October 1, Dublin Road on October 6 and Hap Cremean on October 7, 2020, each marked sampled, no detection. Every result in those records is entered as less than 5.00 nanograms per liter, the same unit as parts per trillion, or less than 25.00 for the GenX compound. The agency says its statewide round covered about 1,550 community and non-transient non-community systems, which is not every public water system in Ohio.

How much sodium is in Columbus tap water?

It depends on the plant, and the report sets no limit against it. In the 2025 report sodium is listed among other water quality parameters of interest, as an annual average rather than a level found, with no set level and no goal. Dublin Road reported 69.2 parts per million with a range of 37.6 to 119.7, Hap Cremean 19.2 with a range of 17.7 to 23.7, and Parsons Avenue 86.7 with a range of 77.8 to 102.2. The highest plant average is more than four times the lowest, which is why the plant serving an address matters on this row.

How do I look up drinking water test results for an Ohio water system?

Through Ohio EPA's Drinking Water Viewer, which replaced a tool called Drinking Water Watch. Ohio EPA's own page, stamped October 2, 2024, says the viewer replaces the previously used Drinking Water Watch, and that it gives access to publicly available drinking water data submitted by public water systems across Ohio. Anything still directing a reader to Drinking Water Watch is out of date. Systems are identified by number as well as by name: Columbus is public water system OH2504412, the identifier Ohio EPA's own PFAS sampling records use for all three of the city's treatment plants.

Does the Columbus water quality report say anything about showers or filters?

It answers both, briefly. Asked whether a filter is needed, the report says no, and that the water delivered to a home meets all federal and state requirements. Asked about pink or dark film on regularly moist surfaces, shower tile among them, it attributes the growth to organisms carried in the air and states that these organisms do not come from your drinking water. Beyond that the report measures water leaving three plants and, for lead and copper, water at 50 sampled taps, and it says the city cannot control the variety of materials used in plumbing components.

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