Northern Kentucky Water District

Northern Kentucky Water District (NKWD) stands as the largest water district and third-largest municipal water provider in Kentucky, serving approximately 300,500 residents across Campbell and Kenton counties, with portions of Boone, Grant, and Pendleton counties.

The District employs dedicated professionals committed to excellence, working diligently to fulfill their mission – providing customers with safe, adequate water through a reliable system meeting all Federal and State standards while delivering exceptional value economically.

NKWD operates three water treatment facilities: Taylor Mill, Fort Thomas, and Memorial Parkway. The Taylor Mill plant draws from the Licking River, while Fort Thomas and Memorial Parkway facilities source water from the Ohio River. NKWD's water meets all Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) health standards, with laboratory analysts collecting samples from over 155 locations monthly – exceeding federal and state requirements to ensure accurate water quality assessment.

The district's primary water sources are the Ohio and Licking rivers. A source water assessment has identified several areas of concern, including extensive transportation infrastructure development, potential spills, high impervious cover percentages, and contaminated runoff. Agricultural areas introduce potential herbicide, pesticide, and fertilizer contamination risks. Additional concerns include bridges, railroads, terminals, waste handlers, and chemical users that could potentially cause hazardous material leaks.

Urban water sources face challenges from landfills, permitted discharges, impaired stream sections, power line herbicide use, residential septic systems, and underground storage tank leakage risks. The complete source water assessment report is available at the Northern Kentucky Area Development Office.

Municipal water sources (including tap and bottled water) come from rivers, lakes, streams, ponds, reservoirs, springs, and wells. As water travels over land or through ground, it dissolves naturally-occurring minerals and sometimes radioactive materials, and can pick up substances from animal or human activity. While all water may contain some contaminants, their presence doesn't necessarily indicate health risks.

The EPA establishes regulations limiting contaminant levels in public water systems, while FDA regulations set similar limits for bottled water. Potential contaminants include microbial (viruses/bacteria), inorganic (salts/metals), pesticides/herbicides, organic chemicals (industrial/petroleum byproducts), and radioactive materials (naturally-occurring or from energy production).

Cryptosporidium and other microbial contaminants can come from numerous sources including imported produce, swimming pools, recreational water, daycare centers, pets, and nursing facilities. Cryptosporidium, found in surface water nationwide, must be ingested to cause illness.

1. What is the Waterford Connect service? The Waterford Connect service enables authorized civic leaders to create and rapidly distribute time-sensitive messages to every phone number stored in the notification database. With this service, authorized users can send hundreds of messages within minutes. Access is restricted to authorized officials only.
2. How does the service operate? Authorized officials record voice messages that are immediately delivered to individual phones registered in the notification database.
3. What types of messages might be distributed using the service? Any message concerning community safety or welfare can be sent via Waterford Connect. Examples include severe weather alerts, hazardous traffic conditions, road closures, and other situations affecting resident safety, property, or wellbeing. Beyond emergency communications, community members can opt-in to receive notifications about local events, news, and important non-emergency information.
4. Does Waterford Connect replace other time-sensitive information systems? This system enhances but doesn't replace existing communication methods. It supplements previously used systems rather than substituting them.
5. Is my phone number included in the notification database? We aim to include every residential and commercial property in our community within the database. For businesses, we store one primary contact number. For residents, we may have multiple numbers registered. You can request secondary numbers be added for priority calling.
6. Can mobile phones be used for notification database listings? Yes, we accept mobile numbers as secondary contacts and encourage you to register your number.
7. What safeguards protect personal information? Waterford Connect is provided by Blackboard Connect, a service of The NTI Group, Inc. (NTI). NTI prioritizes security and privacy, never selling, trading, renting or loaning user information to third parties. Technically, Blackboard Connect employs multiple physical and virtual firewall layers for data protection. NTI uses only secure transmissions with clients, avoiding email or FTP for confidential information in favor of VPN tunnels or SSL. Data is stored in advanced facilities requiring photo ID, thumbprint recognition, keyed access, and 24/7 security staffing. All data is encrypted before offsite storage, and NTI maintains external, independent security audits annually.
8. How can I identify incoming calls from the township system? Calls generated by Waterford Connect display caller-ID number 248-618-6097. Each message begins with "Hello, this is the Waterford Connect notification system" before delivering the specific content.
9. Will Waterford Connect work with call screening systems? Most call screening devices work with our system, though some may require programming to allow our phone number. We conduct periodic tests to confirm message delivery to database numbers.
10. For non-resident property owners, which phone should be listed? Non-residents or owners living outside Waterford may provide additional contact numbers for specific situations. Generally, calls go to primary numbers only, but we can call multiple numbers for each resident or business upon request. Contact our city hall at 248-618-6097 to provide this information.
11. When are multiple registered phone numbers called? Should a situation arise that requires notification, the system will typically call primary numbers first, with secondary numbers contacted as needed based on emergency severity and response requirements.