Belleville Water Dept, NJ
Exceeded the action level in the past
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 1.86 ppb (monitoring period 2026-2026). 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
Belleville Water Dept serves about 35,129 people through 7,339 service connections, which makes it a large system under EPA's size classes. It is owned by a local government (city, town, county or district) and draws surface water, in Essex County, New Jersey. EPA system ID: NJ0701001; phone on file: 973-450-3412. Ask them for your address in their service line inventory - every system had to publish one by Oct 2024.
Every lead result on file
Against the period ending 2025 (1.83 ppb) the latest result is about the same. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Belleville Water Dept is 22 ppb across 16 monitoring periods, 3 of them over the 15 ppb action level.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2026 | 1.86 ppb |
| 2025 | 1.83 ppb |
| 2025 | 1.55 ppb |
| 2024 | 2.1 ppb |
| 2024 | 2.91 ppb |
| 2023 | 4.13 ppb |
| 2023 | 10.8 ppb over 10 |
| 2022 | 7.1 ppb |
| 2022 | 6.29 ppb |
| 2021 | 9.9 ppb |
| 2021 | 10 ppb |
| 2020 | 10.5 ppb over 10 |
| 2020 | 16.7 ppb over 15 |
| 2019 | 16 ppb over 15 |
| 2019 | 22 ppb over 15 |
| 2017 | 10.2 ppb over 10 |
How Belleville Water Dept compares
Of the 605 New Jersey systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 1 ppb; 5 are over 15 ppb right now and 52 have gone over at some point. Belleville Water Dept's 1.86 ppb sits at the 64th percentile in New Jersey and the 68th nationally (higher means more lead).
Neighbouring systems
19 other systems share Essex County; 8 of them have a higher latest lead result than Belleville Water Dept. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Newark Water Department | 294,274 | 4.03 ppb |
| East Orange Water Commission | 75,000 | 1.59 ppb |
| Bloomfield Water Department | 53,315 | 2.2 ppb |
| Montclair Water Bureau | 40,150 | 0 (not detected) |
| Orange Water Dept | 30,134 | 2.02 ppb |
| Nutley Water Dept | 29,500 | 0.55 ppb |
| Livingston Twp Div Of Water | 27,391 | 4.18 ppb |
| South Orange Water Department | 16,964 | 2 ppb |
| Verona Water Department | 13,641 | 0 (not detected) |
| Cedar Grove Water Dept | 12,900 | 0 (not detected) |
Next steps for Belleville, NJ
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Belleville, NJ 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 Belleville Water Dept 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. Why sampled homes are the worst-case ones is in the guide to reading the number. Why an old exceedance still matters: over the limit before, under it now.