Bay County, Florida: drinking water report. Bay County – Panama City – serves about 180,000 residents in the Florida Panhandle.
Bay County – Panama City – serves about 180,000 residents in the Florida Panhandle. Bay County Utility Services and the City of Panama City draw from the Sand and Gravel Aquifer and the Floridan Aquifer. Hurricane Michael in 2018 devastated the county, causing extensive damage to water infrastructure that took years to fully repair.
Hurricane Michael's Category 5 winds destroyed treatment facilities, broke distribution mains, and contaminated wells across the county. The water system has been largely rebuilt, with significant federal disaster recovery funding invested in infrastructure improvements.
UCMR5 data shows PFAS detections in some county systems. Tyndall Air Force Base, which was severely damaged by Hurricane Michael, is a confirmed PFAS source. According to the Florida DEP, PFAS has been detected in monitoring wells around the base. The Department of Defense has committed to PFAS remediation at Tyndall as part of the base's reconstruction.
Bay County's post-hurricane infrastructure is newer than most Florida systems, but PFAS from Tyndall AFB remains a concern.
Check your water for current data. Reverse osmosis handles PFAS effectively. Our water filter guide covers options. Pull your detailed report, and visit our Florida page for statewide data.
Drinking water is one exposure route. These federal datasets also cover Bay County, FL.
The EPA places Bay County, FL in Zone 3 - the EPA's lowest-risk category, with a predicted average indoor radon level below 2 pCi/L. Zone maps predict an area's radon potential from geology and existing indoor readings; they say nothing about a specific house. Testing is the only way to know your own level.
26% of homes in Bay County, FL were built before 1980, and 4% before 1950. Residential lead paint was banned in 1978, so housing age is the strongest available proxy for lead-paint exposure. This describes the county's housing stock, not any one home.
Modelled annual fine-particle pollution (PM2.5) in Bay County, FL averages 7.9 µg/m³, within the EPA's annual standard of 9 µg/m³. These are CDC modelled county estimates rather than readings from a specific monitor.
How radon zones work · Air quality by county · Lead exposure guide
9 public water systems serving Bay County, FL have EPA lead testing on record. The reported lead sample skews toward systems that already flagged a problem, so its exceedance rate is not directly comparable with other areas. 5 water systems serving Bay County, FL carry a health-based EPA Safe Drinking Water Act violation.
| Most-cited violation type | Systems affected |
|---|---|
| Lead and Copper Rule Revisions | 3 |
| Haloacetic Acids (HAA5) | 3 |
Source: EPA Lead and Copper Rule 90th-percentile tap sampling and EPA SDWIS Safe Drinking Water Act enforcement records, aggregated from the public water systems serving this county. Figures are counts of water systems, not a test of any individual home or tap.