Buffalo Center Muni Water Dept, IA
Lead reported as not detected
Latest 90th-percentile lead: reported as 0 (not detected) (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 90th-percentile result was reported as 0 (not detected at the lab's limit). That says the sampled homes were low, not that your home has no lead service line. Check your utility's service line inventory for your address.
Buffalo Center Muni Water Dept at a glance
Buffalo Center Muni Water Dept serves about 857 people through 529 service connections, which makes it a small system under EPA's size classes. It is owned by a local government (city, town, county or district) and draws groundwater, in Winnebago County, Iowa. EPA system ID: IA9506052; phone on file: 515-320-1122. They can tell you what your service line is made of and whether they pay to replace it.
Every lead result on file
That is down 2 ppb from 2 ppb in the period ending 2021. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Buffalo Center Muni Water Dept is 2 ppb across 3 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2024 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2021 | 2 ppb |
| 2018 | 1 ppb |
Against other Iowa systems
Of the 1,066 Iowa systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 1.4 ppb; 4 are over 15 ppb right now and 36 have gone over at some point. Buffalo Center Muni Water Dept's reported as 0 (not detected) sits at the 23rd percentile in Iowa and the 26th nationally (higher means more lead). Systems reporting 0 tie at the bottom, so the rank mostly reflects size among them.
Nearby utilities
6 other systems share Winnebago County; 4 of them have a higher latest lead result than Buffalo Center Muni Water Dept. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Forest City Water Supply | 4,285 | 5 ppb |
| Lake Mills Municipal Water Dept-South | 2,158 | 3 ppb |
| Thompson Water Works | 499 | 0 (not detected) |
| Leland Water Supply | 249 | 9.8 ppb |
| Rake Water Supply | 186 | 1 ppb |
| Rocky Knoll Mhp | 49 | 0 (not detected) |
What to do in your house
Look up your address in Buffalo Center Muni Water Dept's service line inventory. If it says lead, galvanized or unknown, test your tap. If your own line is lead, replacing the private side runs about $1,200-$12,300 (EPA average about $4,700). Ask Buffalo Center Muni 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. Small systems behave differently: why small systems go over more often.