City Of Lancaster, PA
Lead detected, under the action levels
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 7 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. 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.
City Of Lancaster at a glance
City Of Lancaster serves about 120,000 people through 49,376 service connections, which makes it a very large system under EPA's size classes. It is owned by a local government (city, town, county or district) and draws surface water, in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. EPA system ID: PA7360058; phone on file: 717-291-4738. They can tell you what your service line is made of and whether they pay to replace it.
Lead results over time
That is down 2.9 ppb from 9.9 ppb in the period ending 2022. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for City Of Lancaster is 9.9 ppb across 4 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 7 ppb |
| 2022 | 9.9 ppb |
| 2019 | 5.7 ppb |
| 2016 | 6 ppb |
How City Of Lancaster compares
Of the 516 Pennsylvania systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 2 ppb; 143 are over 15 ppb right now and 156 have gone over at some point. City Of Lancaster's 7 ppb sits at the 70th percentile in Pennsylvania and the 95th nationally (higher means more lead).
Nearby utilities
92 other systems share Lancaster County; 11 of them have a higher latest lead result than City Of Lancaster. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Columbia Water Co | 25,200 | 1 ppb |
| Ephrata Area Joint Authority | 24,500 | 1.52 ppb |
| East Hempfield Water Auth | 20,988 | 8 ppb |
| Elizabethtown Area Water | 19,000 | 3 ppb |
| Mt Joy Boro Auth | 15,261 | 4 ppb |
| Lititz Boro | 9,397 | 7 ppb |
| Warwick Twp Lititz Sys | 8,561 | 1 ppb |
| New Holland Borough | 8,490 | 0 (not detected) |
| Millersville Univ | 7,950 | 3 ppb |
| Upper Leacock Township | 7,734 | 2 ppb |
Next steps for Lancaster, PA
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Lancaster, PA 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 Lancaster 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. The action level is dropping - the 10 ppb rule from 2027.