Bowbells City Of, ND
Exceeded the action level in the past
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 0.81 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. 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.
Bowbells City Of at a glance
Bowbells City Of serves about 336 people through 266 service connections, which makes it a very small system under EPA's size classes. It is owned by a local government (city, town, county or district) and draws groundwater, in Burke County, North Dakota. EPA system ID: ND0700114; phone on file: 701-377-2608. They can tell you what your service line is made of and whether they pay to replace it.
Bowbells City Of's lead record
Against the period ending 2024 (0 ppb) the latest result is about the same. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Bowbells City Of is 33.4 ppb across 13 monitoring periods, 2 of them over the 15 ppb action level.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 0.81 ppb |
| 2024 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2023 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2023 | 19.9 ppb over 15 |
| 2022 | 4.63 ppb |
| 2022 | 1.71 ppb |
| 2021 | 3.14 ppb |
| 2021 | 1.12 ppb |
| 2020 | 2.89 ppb |
| 2020 | 5.25 ppb |
| 2019 | 1.09 ppb |
| 2019 | 2.51 ppb |
| 2018 | 33.4 ppb over 15 |
How Bowbells City Of compares
Of the 300 North Dakota systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 0.91 ppb; 3 are over 15 ppb right now and 20 have gone over at some point. Bowbells City Of's 0.81 ppb sits at the 48th percentile in North Dakota and the 48th nationally (higher means more lead).
Other water systems in Burke County
5 other systems share Burke County; 3 of them have a higher latest lead result than Bowbells City Of. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Powers Lake City Of | 280 | 2.45 ppb |
| Lignite City Of | 155 | 3.29 ppb |
| Columbus City Of | 133 | 0 (not detected) |
| Portal City Of | 126 | 0 (not detected) |
| Flaxton City Of | 66 | 2.66 ppb |
Your move
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Bowbells, ND 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 Bowbells City Of whether it covers that cost before hiring anyone - many utilities now do. Its latest copper 90th percentile is 1830 ppb (copper action level 1,300 ppb).
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. Why an old exceedance still matters: over the limit before, under it now.