Public water
Public water is the everyday name for water from what Virginia law calls a waterworks: a system that serves piped water for human consumption to at least 15 service connections or 25 or more individuals for at least 60 days out of the year. A single household's private well is not one.
Fifteen connections or twenty-five people, sixty days a year
Virginia's waterworks definition counts who a system serves, not who owns it or where the water starts.
a system that serves piped water for human consumption to at least 15 service connections or 25 or more individuals for at least 60 days out of the year
Va. Code 32.1-167, definition of waterworks
The same section defines pure water as water fit for human consumption that is sanitary, normally free of minerals, organic substances and toxic agents in excess of reasonable amounts, and adequate in quantity and quality for the minimum health requirements of the persons served.
It defines a waterworks' water supply broadly, as water taken in from wells, streams, springs, lakes and other bodies of surface water, natural or impounded.
Authority systems with names, a town utility and a city's corporate limits
Around Hillsville and Galax, public water comes through named systems, each with an operator and an edge.
Carroll County's 2024 comprehensive plan lists eight Public Service Authority water systems: Route 100, Woodlawn, Gladeville/Cranberry, Tower Road, Cana, Fancy Gap, Industrial Park and Hillcrest. The same plan says "rural areas generally rely on well and septic systems."
Hillsville is its own case, because the corporate line decides which utility applies, and that line is set out on Hillsville VA real estate.
The City of Galax publishes its water and wastewater rates as rates inside corporate limits.
Commercial ground raises the same parcel-by-parcel question. The business park beside Interstate 77 at Exit 19 is described in what Wildwood Commerce Park is.
A private well runs under different rules, and never ties into the main
Virginia defines a private well as a water well constructed for a person on land that person owns or leases, and its private well regulation excludes wells constructed as a groundwater source for a waterworks. A well drilled to feed a public system falls outside that regulation, however much it looks like a household well.
VDH, citing a 2007 Department of Environmental Quality figure, says 92 percent of the more than one million Virginia households using private wells also use septic systems.
Homes with a well and public supply must never connect the two systems.
Virginia Department of Health, private well water information
A well shared by a few houses is a different arrangement again, with its own paper, covered in shared wells. One whose count approaches 15 connections or 25 people is a question for VDH's drinking water program.
One address at a time: the authority, the town or the city answers
The eight system names in the county plan say where the authority runs water, not which parcels a main reaches or whether the operator will serve a given lot.
That parcel-level answer comes from the operator: in Carroll County the Public Service Authority, mailing address 605-2 Pine Street, Hillsville, VA 24343, 276-730-3170, and inside a town or city its own utility.
What a buyer can take from a listing sheet that says utilities are available is argued in what public water and sewer available means. The sewer half of that phrase, which each locality defines for itself, has its own entry under sewer availability.
Selling a parcel near a public water main?
Send the road and the county, and Lowell will name the system that runs nearest and the office that can say whether it will serve your lot. No cost, no obligation.
Got it. Thank you.
We'll be in touch shortly with an honest read.
Questions about this term
Can a house on public water keep its old well connected to the plumbing?
No. VDH says homes with a well and public supply must never connect the two systems. Whether an old well can stay on the property for some other use, or has to be abandoned under a permit, is a question for the utility that serves the address and for the local health department, where private well permit applications go.
Can a water system that draws from wells still count as public water?
Yes. Virginia's Code counts water taken from wells, springs, streams and lakes as a waterworks water supply, and it defines a waterworks by service, at least 15 connections or 25 people for 60 days a year, not by where the water starts. The private well regulation excludes wells built as a waterworks source. Whether a given system is a waterworks goes to VDH.
Where this page's facts come from
Every rule, office and figure above traces to one of these. Rules change; check the office before you act on one.
- Va. Code 32.1-167, definitions of waterworks, pure water and water supply Code of Virginia
- 12VAC5-630-10, definition of a private well Virginia Administrative Code
- 12VAC5-630-30, wells excluded from the private well regulation Virginia Administrative Code
- 2024 Comprehensive Plan: Public Service Authority water systems and rural water policy (PDF) Carroll County, Virginia
- Water and wastewater: rates inside corporate limits and connection charges City of Galax
- Private well water information: wells, septic systems and public supply Virginia Department of Health
- Contact us: mailing address and main phone Carroll County Public Service Authority