Needles, City Of, CA
Exceeded the action level in the past
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 3.4 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. 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.
Needles, City Of at a glance
Needles, City Of serves about 4,872 people through 1,706 service connections, which makes it a medium-sized system under EPA's size classes. It is owned by a local government (city, town, county or district) and draws groundwater, in San Bernardino County, California. EPA system ID: CA3610032; phone on file: 760-326-2115. Call that number and ask whether your address has a lead, galvanized or unknown service line.
Lead results over time
That is down 2.9 ppb from 6.3 ppb in the period ending 2022. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Needles, City Of is 46.5 ppb across 4 monitoring periods, 1 of them over the 15 ppb action level.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 3.4 ppb |
| 2022 | 6.3 ppb |
| 2019 | 46.5 ppb over 15 |
| 2016 | 4 ppb |
Where this result ranks
Of the 2,884 California systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 0 ppb; 30 are over 15 ppb right now and 215 have gone over at some point. Needles, City Of's 3.4 ppb sits at the 87th percentile in California and the 85th nationally (higher means more lead).
Nearby utilities
146 other systems share San Bernardino County; 14 of them have a higher latest lead result than Needles, City Of. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| San Gabriel Valley Wc - Fontana | 228,270 | 0 (not detected) |
| San Bernardino City | 214,665 | 0 (not detected) |
| Cucamonga Valley Water District | 213,375 | 0 (not detected) |
| Ontario Municipal Utilities Company | 185,010 | 0.6 ppb |
| Victorville Water District | 140,721 | 0 (not detected) |
| San Bernardino Valley Wd | 109,608 | - |
| East Valley Water District | 108,600 | 0 (not detected) |
| Hesperia Wd | 101,836 | 0 (not detected) |
| West Valley Water District | 96,123 | 0 (not detected) |
| Chino, City Of | 90,187 | 1 ppb |
Next steps for Needles, CA
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Needles, CA 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 Needles, 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. Why an old exceedance still matters: over the limit before, under it now.