Bellefonte Borough Water Auth, PA
Lead detected, under the action levels
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 4.62 ppb (monitoring period 2025-2025). The federal action level is 15 ppb today and drops to 10 ppb in Nov 2027; EPA's health goal is 0. Lead was measured in sampled homes but the 90th percentile is under both action levels. EPA's health goal for lead is zero, so test your own tap if your home was built before 1986 or anyone in it is pregnant or a young child.
Bellefonte Borough Water Auth at a glance
Bellefonte Borough Water Auth serves about 9,500 people through 3,436 service connections, which makes it a medium-sized system under EPA's size classes. It is owned by a local government (city, town, county or district) and draws groundwater, in Centre County, Pennsylvania. EPA system ID: PA4140075; phone on file: 814-355-1501. Ask them for your address in their service line inventory - every system had to publish one by Oct 2024.
Bellefonte Borough Water Auth's lead record
That is up 3.39 ppb from 1.23 ppb in the period ending 2022. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Bellefonte Borough Water Auth is 4.82 ppb across 4 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 4.62 ppb |
| 2022 | 1.23 ppb |
| 2019 | 4.82 ppb |
| 2016 | 3.13 ppb |
Where this result ranks
Of the 516 Pennsylvania systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 2 ppb; 143 are over 15 ppb right now and 156 have gone over at some point. Bellefonte Borough Water Auth's 4.62 ppb sits at the 66th percentile in Pennsylvania and the 90th nationally (higher means more lead).
Neighbouring systems
42 other systems share Centre County; 3 of them have a higher latest lead result than Bellefonte Borough Water Auth. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| State College Boro Water Auth | 72,000 | 3.7 ppb |
| Penn State Univ | 37,000 | 10.8 ppb |
| Paw Philipsburg | 20,865 | 0 (not detected) |
| College Twp Water Authority | 6,000 | 2.4 ppb |
| Mountaintop Reg Water Auth | 3,456 | 0 (not detected) |
| Spring Twp Water Authority | 3,300 | 2.9 ppb |
| Walker Twp Water Assn | 3,250 | - |
| State Corr Inst Benner Twp | 2,850 | 2.69 ppb |
| Milesburg Borough Water Auth | 2,750 | - |
| Centre Hall Boro Water Dept | 1,900 | 43.27 ppb |
What to do in your house
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Bellefonte, PA 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 Bellefonte Borough Water Auth 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. Size matters more than most people expect: small vs large water systems.