Jackson County Water Report

Jackson County's water systems carry a failing grade, scoring 35.7 out of 100. Over the past five years, EPA SDWIS records 43 health-based violations — a pattern that public water utilities are required to disclose and correct.

Under the Clean Water Act §303(d), EPA ATTAINS tracks whether waterways meet quality standards for drinking, recreation, and aquatic life (reporting cycle: 2022). A notable 25.0% of assessed waterways carry an impairment designation (11 of 44 water bodies) across Jackson County's watersheds. The leading impairment causes are escherichia coli (e. coli) and sedimentation/siltation. Impairment does not mean tap water is unsafe — it measures ambient waterway conditions upstream of treatment, not finished drinking water.

USGS NWIS gauge data (as of 2026-05-14T14:00:00.000-05:00) puts PAINT ROCK RIVER at 257.0 cfs — well below its long-term average at 38% of mean — low-flow conditions worth noting for water-dependent ecosystems. Streamflow is a leading indicator of drought stress, sediment load, and dilution capacity: low flows concentrate pollutants and warm water temperatures, stressing aquatic life and, in surface-water-dependent systems, the source water quality for treatment plants.

EPA's Water Quality Portal (WQP) aggregates monitoring data from federal, state, and tribal agencies. Jackson County has moderate coverage with 36 active monitoring sites with 28,086 recent measurements on record. Predominant monitoring categories include physical and inorganics, minor, metals. More monitoring sites generally indicate greater scientific attention to local water conditions — and provide the baseline data that regulators use to set future impairment listings.