Columbus tap water: moderately hard water, PFOA samples up to 5.3 ppt (EPA limit 4)

01 · What it means

What these readings mean for your home

Each reading in plain English: what it is, how Columbus compares with the other systems we track, and whether there’s anything to do. The tags follow EPA’s limits and reference levels where EPA has one; for hardness, which has no EPA limit, they follow the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scale and Minnesota’s health department. New to the acronyms? Every term, in plain English.

02 · The full results

Every PFAS result EPA recorded

In EPA’s national testing (sampled 2024), Columbus’s highest samples reached PFOA at 5.3 ppt, above EPA’s 4 ppt limit. These are individual samples, not a compliance finding: water systems have until 2029 to meet the limit, judged on a yearly average.

03 · Where it comes from

The source, and who else drinks it

Columbus uses surface water from the Scioto River and Big Walnut Creek and groundwater pumped from sand and gravel deposits of the Scioto River Valley, which is treated at the Parsons Avenue plant.

Columbus Water & Power serves about 1.3 million people directly, and 18 other water systems buy water from it, serving about 144,954 more. If you live in one of them, most of what’s on this page describes your water too, though hardness and disinfectant can change if your system blends in its own wells.

Columbus softens its water by adding soda ash or caustic soda and hydrated lime to remove calcium and magnesium.

Columbus’s water system had no health-based violations in the five years through September 2026, according to EPA’s federal database.

04 · Questions

Columbus water questions

Is Columbus tap water safe to drink?

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) doesn’t grade a city’s tap water as safe or unsafe; it sets limits and records violations. By that record, Columbus’s water system had no health-based violations of federal drinking water rules in the five years through September 2026. Separately, EPA’s 2024 testing found PFOA or PFOS (two PFAS “forever chemicals”) samples above the 4 parts per trillion (ppt) limit that utilities must meet, on a yearly average, by 2029. A filter certified to NSF/ANSI 53 or 58 for PFOA and PFOS addresses it at the tap.

Is Columbus tap water hard?

Columbus tap water is moderately hard: about 6.7 grains per gallon (115 milligrams per liter (mg/L)), depending on which treatment plant serves your neighborhood (85 to 132 mg/L), according to published water quality data from Columbus Water & Power (2025).

Does Columbus tap water have PFAS?

In the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) national testing (sampled 2024), Columbus’s highest samples reached PFOA (a PFAS “forever chemical”) at 5.3 parts per trillion (ppt), above EPA’s 4 ppt limit. These are individual samples, not a compliance finding: water systems have until 2029 to meet the limit, judged on a yearly average.

Does Columbus use chlorine or chloramine?

Free chlorine. Columbus adds chlorine as its final disinfection step and reports total chlorine in the water it delivers, and the report lists ammonia among substances not found in the drinking water.

Has Columbus’s water system had violations?

Columbus’s water system had no health-based violations in the five years through September 2026, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) federal database.