Ft Wainwright - Main Post, AK
Lead detected, under the action levels
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 3.1 ppb (monitoring period 2023-2025). 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.
About Ft Wainwright - Main Post
Ft Wainwright - Main Post serves about 20,076 people through 758 service connections, which makes it a large system under EPA's size classes. It is privately owned and draws groundwater, in Fairbanks North Star Borough County, Alaska. EPA system ID: AK2310918; phone on file: 907-455-1597. Ask them for your address in their service line inventory - every system had to publish one by Oct 2024.
Ft Wainwright - Main Post's lead record
Against the period ending 2022 (2.4 ppb) the latest result is about the same. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Ft Wainwright - Main Post is 8.1 ppb across 4 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 3.1 ppb |
| 2022 | 2.4 ppb |
| 2019 | 8.1 ppb |
| 2016 | 4.7 ppb |
Where this result ranks
Of the 394 Alaska systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 1.6 ppb; 3 are over 15 ppb right now and 53 have gone over at some point. Ft Wainwright - Main Post's 3.1 ppb sits at the 74th percentile in Alaska and the 83rd nationally (higher means more lead).
Nearby utilities
22 other systems share Fairbanks North Star Borough County; 5 of them have a higher latest lead result than Ft Wainwright - Main Post. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Golden Heart Utilities | 78,324 | 2.4 ppb |
| College Utilities Corporation | 27,000 | 1 ppb |
| Eielson - Air Force Base | 11,870 | 1.2 ppb |
| University Of Alaska - Fairbanks | 6,200 | 2.4 ppb |
| North Pole Utilities | 4,005 | 0.56 ppb |
| H2o 2u, Dba The Fill | 2,400 | - |
| Valley Water Company | 1,575 | 23 ppb |
| Pioneer Wells At Fox | 880 | 0 (not detected) |
| Pioneer Wells | 600 | 0 (not detected) |
| Salcha Community Watering Point | 508 | 3.3 ppb |
What to do in your house
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Fairbanks, AK 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 Ft Wainwright - Main Post 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.