Atlanta, GA
Exceeded the action level in the past
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 1.4 ppb (monitoring period 2022-2024). The federal action level is 15 ppb today and drops to 10 ppb in Nov 2027; EPA's health goal is 0. The latest result is under the action level, but this system has gone over 15 ppb before. Lead comes from pipes, not the source water, so a home with a lead service line can still be exposed. Test your own tap.
Who runs the water here
Atlanta serves about 1,089,893 people through 188,246 service connections, which makes it a very large system under EPA's size classes. It is owned by a local government (city, town, county or district) and draws surface water, in Dekalb,Fulton County, Georgia. EPA system ID: GA1210001; phone on file: 678-883-4933. They can tell you what your service line is made of and whether they pay to replace it.
Atlanta's lead record
Against the period ending 2021 (2.4 ppb) the latest result is about the same. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Atlanta is 88.5 ppb across 4 monitoring periods, 1 of them over the 15 ppb action level.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2024 | 1.4 ppb |
| 2021 | 2.4 ppb |
| 2018 | 6.1 ppb |
| 2018 | 88.5 ppb over 15 |
How Atlanta compares
Of the 1,681 Georgia systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 0.68 ppb; 15 are over 15 ppb right now and 131 have gone over at some point. Atlanta's 1.4 ppb sits at the 65th percentile in Georgia and the 63rd nationally (higher means more lead).
What to do in your house
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Atlanta, GA may offer free or low-cost kits through the utility. If your own line is lead, replacing the private side runs about $1,200-$12,300 (EPA average about $4,700). Ask Atlanta whether it covers that cost before hiring anyone - many utilities now do.
These figures describe homes the utility sampled, not your tap. Only your service line record or a test of your own water answers the question for your house. What a 90th-percentile result does and does not tell you: how to read a lead result. More in what a past exceedance means today.