Buffalo City Of, ND
Lead detected, under the action levels
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 1.46 ppb (monitoring period 2021-2023). 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.
Buffalo City Of at a glance
Buffalo City Of serves about 188 people through 132 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 Cass County, North Dakota. EPA system ID: ND0900134; phone on file: 701-633-2356. 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 2020 (1.39 ppb) the latest result is about the same. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Buffalo City Of is 1.46 ppb across 3 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2023 | 1.46 ppb |
| 2020 | 1.39 ppb |
| 2017 | 0 (not detected) |
How Buffalo 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. Buffalo City Of's 1.46 ppb sits at the 62nd percentile in North Dakota and the 63rd nationally (higher means more lead).
Neighbouring systems
25 other systems share Cass County; 9 of them have a higher latest lead result than Buffalo City Of. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Fargo City Of | 120,762 | 1.89 ppb |
| West Fargo City Of | 34,858 | 0 (not detected) |
| Cass Rural Water District Fargo | 4,242 | 1.63 ppb |
| Cass Rural Water District-Phase I | 3,658 | 0 (not detected) |
| Casselton City Of | 2,513 | 12.1 ppb |
| Cass Rural Water District-Phase Ii | 1,700 | 0 (not detected) |
| Cass Rural Water District-Phase Iii | 1,682 | 0 (not detected) |
| Horace City Of | 1,641 | 0 (not detected) |
| Mapleton City Of | 1,320 | 0 (not detected) |
| Harwood City Of | 718 | 6.72 ppb |
What to do in your house
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Buffalo, 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 Buffalo City Of 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.