City Of Chesapeake - Western Branch Sys, VA
Lead detected, under the action levels
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 0.81 ppb (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. 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.
Who runs the water here
City Of Chesapeake - Western Branch Sys serves about 32,326 people through 11,147 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. EPA system ID: VA3550050; phone on file: 757-382-6352. 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 2021 (0 ppb) the latest result is about the same. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for City Of Chesapeake - Western Branch Sys is 0.81 ppb across 3 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2024 | 0.81 ppb |
| 2021 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2018 | 0 (not detected) |
How City Of Chesapeake - Western Branch Sys compares
Of the 996 Virginia systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 0 ppb; 3 are over 15 ppb right now and 59 have gone over at some point. City Of Chesapeake - Western Branch Sys's 0.81 ppb sits at the 56th percentile in Virginia and the 48th nationally (higher means more lead).
Your move
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Chesapeake, VA 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 City Of Chesapeake - Western Branch Sys 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. The action level is dropping - the 10 ppb rule from 2027.