Three of the 15 active public water systems in Lee County had any violation in the five years ending June 30, 2026, according to EPA’s public drinking water records. By The Lee Daily Register’s count, those three account for 31 entries. Twenty-six come from one testing episode in 2021, and one is classed as health-based. EPA’s records list all 31 as resolved.
The Register pulled each system’s file on Nov. 6 and tallied entries by system and year; it found no county breakdown like this published by EPA or the state. The extract is dated Oct. 7, 2026.
| Year | System | Entries | What they were |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | LCPSA-KVS | 26 | Testing (monitoring), one per chemical |
| 2022 | None | 0 | — |
| 2023 | None | 0 | — |
| 2024 | None | 0 | — |
| 2025 | Town of Pennington Gap | 4 | 1 health-based, 1 reporting, 2 public notice |
| 2025 | Dryden Water Authority | 1 | Chlorine monitoring |
| 2026 (through June 30) | None | 0 | — |
One testing episode, counted 26 times
KVS is the Lee County Public Service Authority’s system for 2,130 people, drawing surface water. The name matches the Kentucky Virginia Stone quarry plant described in a 2000 EPA grant announcement. Its 26 entries all cover calendar year 2021 and each names one pesticide or industrial chemical, such as atrazine or PCBs. Each carries a state notice of violation dated Nov. 4, 2021, so the Register counts them as one episode.
These are monitoring entries. The Virginia Department of Health says that, with rare exceptions, such a violation means samples were not collected or results were not reported in the compliance period. EPA lists compliance achieved between July 13 and Sept. 20, 2022. EPA’s underlying table has a 27th 2021 entry for KVS that its detailed report omits, which would make 32.
Pennington Gap and Dryden, 2025
The only health-based entry in the five years belongs to the town of Pennington Gap, whose system serves 1,781 people from the Powell River, according to the town’s 2024 water quality report. It is a treatment-technique violation under the Revised Total Coliform Rule for Jan. 4 to 30, 2025, plus a reporting violation for the same dates. A treatment technique is a required fix rather than a numeric limit: when coliform bacteria show up in samples, EPA says the system must assess and correct any defect found.
Coliforms are indicator bacteria, the town’s report explains, a sign that harmful organisms may be present or that a path for contamination exists. The state issued notices of violation on Jan. 27; compliance was achieved Jan. 30. Two public-notice entries, which concern telling customers about a violation, cover Feb. 27 to March 31, 2025. The town’s 2024 report separately notes one completed Level 1 assessment, a study of why coliform turned up.
Dryden Water Authority, which serves 1,922 people with purchased surface water, has one entry: a chlorine monitoring violation for March 2025, with compliance achieved April 15. The category is monitoring and reporting, so it concerns testing or reporting disinfectant levels, not a measured excess.
For all 31 entries, the state’s actions were notices of violation and public-notification steps, which EPA classes as informal. The reports list no orders or penalties.
What the records say about lead
EPA’s reports list lead results for 13 systems; Blackwater and Big Hill have none shown. The 90th-percentile figure, the level that 90% of sampled homes fall at or below, is far under the 0.015 mg/L action level. It is listed as 0 for 12 systems and 0.002 mg/L for the Town of Jonesville (2021-2023 monitoring). No lead or copper violations appear, though the reports show no copper results for any Lee system.
Pennington Gap’s report adds a number not on the EPA pages the Register reviewed. The town listed 1,246 service lines of unknown material, with no galvanized lines needing replacement; the report gives no count of lead lines. “Unknown” means the pipe material has not been identified, not that lead was found.
Inspection findings sit outside the violation count
EPA’s pages also list “significant deficiencies” from sanitary surveys, on-site reviews of a system’s source, treatment, pipes and storage. They appear for Jonesville (source and treatment, October 2023), Keokee (distribution and management, July 2025) and St. Charles (the same two areas, in September 2022 and again in July 2025). A federal rule for surveys EPA itself performs describes a significant deficiency as a defect or failure that could let contamination reach customers. EPA’s pages do not say what was found.
What this count leaves out
EPA says its drinking water data are not real-time. Violations are reported quarterly, and the Oct. 7 extract shows no entries for 2026. It does not include the Pennington Gap chlorine notice the Register reported Oct. 18. Eleven of the 15 systems, serving about 11,200 people, are labeled as buying their water, and the reports reviewed do not name their sellers.
For context, Virginia’s health department reported that 2,203 of 2,880 waterworks statewide had no violations in 2024. None of Lee’s 15 had an entry starting that year. In EPA’s underlying violation table, the five years before (July 2016 to June 2021) show 33 entries at nine of today’s systems, four of them health-based, against 32 at three systems since. EPA’s records cover public systems only, not private wells. Each system’s annual water quality report covers compliance status.
