Bethany Beach Water Department, DE
Lead detected, under the action levels
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 4.9 ppb (monitoring period 2023-2025). 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.
Bethany Beach Water Department at a glance
Bethany Beach Water Department serves about 12,000 people through 3,447 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 groundwater, in Sussex County, Delaware. EPA system ID: DE0000556; phone on file: 302-539-8011. 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 2022 (5.1 ppb) the latest result is about the same. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Bethany Beach Water Department is 5.4 ppb across 4 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 4.9 ppb |
| 2022 | 5.1 ppb |
| 2019 | 4.4 ppb |
| 2016 | 5.4 ppb |
Against other Delaware systems
Of the 196 Delaware systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 0.31 ppb; 1 are over 15 ppb right now and 14 have gone over at some point. Bethany Beach Water Department's 4.9 ppb sits at the 84th percentile in Delaware and the 90th nationally (higher means more lead).
Neighbouring systems
96 other systems share Sussex County; 21 of them have a higher latest lead result than Bethany Beach Water Department. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Rehoboth Pump District (Tui) | 81,417 | 0.71 ppb |
| Bethany Bay Pump District | 52,684 | 2.3 ppb |
| Dewey Beach Water Department | 31,000 | 0 (not detected) |
| Rehoboth Beach Water Department | 25,000 | 0 (not detected) |
| Artesian Southern Sussex Regional | 20,145 | 2 ppb |
| Sussex Shores Water Company | 12,450 | 6.9 ppb |
| Long Neck Water Company | 11,000 | 1.1 ppb |
| Lewes Board Of Public Works | 9,627 | 21.6 ppb |
| Millsboro Water Department | 8,568 | 5.2 ppb |
| Bayside Pump District (Tui) | 8,400 | 2.3 ppb |
Next steps for Bethany Beach, DE
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Bethany Beach, DE 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 Bethany Beach Water Department 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.