Humboldt, IL
Exceeded the action level in the past
Latest 90th-percentile lead: reported as 0 (not detected) (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. The latest result is under the action level, but this system has gone over 15 ppb before. Lead comes from pipes, not the source water, so a home with a lead service line can still be exposed. Test your own tap.
Humboldt at a glance
Humboldt serves about 361 people through 229 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 surface water, in Coles County, Illinois. EPA system ID: IL0290150; phone on file: 217-856-2205. Ask them for your address in their service line inventory - every system had to publish one by Oct 2024.
Lead results over time
Against the period ending 2024 (0 ppb) the latest result is about the same. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Humboldt is 17.75 ppb across 7 monitoring periods, 1 of them over the 15 ppb action level.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2024 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2023 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2022 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2021 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2020 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2018 | 17.75 ppb over 15 |
How Humboldt compares
Of the 1,744 Illinois systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 0 ppb; 22 are over 15 ppb right now and 152 have gone over at some point. Humboldt's reported as 0 (not detected) sits at the 16th percentile in Illinois and the 20th nationally (higher means more lead). Systems reporting 0 tie at the bottom, so the rank mostly reflects size among them.
Nearby utilities
8 other systems share Coles County; 3 of them have a higher latest lead result than Humboldt. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Mattoon | 19,500 | 0 (not detected) |
| Charleston | 17,286 | 3 ppb |
| Clear Water Service Corp | 8,900 | 1.1 ppb |
| Eastern Illinois University | 5,500 | 0 (not detected) |
| Embarras Area Water District | 3,750 | 1.4 ppb |
| Oakland | 739 | 0 (not detected) |
| Cooks Mills Water Association | 720 | 0 (not detected) |
| Ashmore | 637 | 0 (not detected) |
What to do in your house
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Humboldt, IL 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 Humboldt 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. Why an old exceedance still matters: over the limit before, under it now.