New Bern, City Of, NC
Lead reported as not detected
Latest 90th-percentile lead: reported as 0 (not detected) (monitoring period 2026-2028). The federal action level is 15 ppb today and drops to 10 ppb in Nov 2027; EPA's health goal is 0. The latest 90th-percentile result was reported as 0 (not detected at the lab's limit). That says the sampled homes were low, not that your home has no lead service line. Check your utility's service line inventory for your address.
New Bern, City Of at a glance
New Bern, City Of serves about 37,884 people through 19,082 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 groundwater, in Craven County, North Carolina. EPA system ID: NC0425010; phone on file: 252-639-7527. They can tell you what your service line is made of and whether they pay to replace it.
Lead results over time
Against the period ending 2025 (0 ppb) the latest result is about the same. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for New Bern, City Of is 4 ppb across 5 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2028 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2025 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2022 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2019 | 3 ppb |
| 2016 | 4 ppb |
Where this result ranks
Of the 1,925 North Carolina systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 0 ppb; 5 are over 15 ppb right now and 75 have gone over at some point. New Bern, City Of's reported as 0 (not detected) sits at the 77th percentile in North Carolina and the 39th nationally (higher means more lead). Systems reporting 0 tie at the bottom, so the rank mostly reflects size among them.
Neighbouring systems
11 other systems share Craven County; 2 of them have a higher latest lead result than New Bern, City Of. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Craven County Water System | 37,848 | 0 (not detected) |
| Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point | 17,144 | 0 (not detected) |
| Havelock Water System | 14,925 | 0 (not detected) |
| First Craven Sanitary District | 6,325 | 0 (not detected) |
| Fairfield Harbour | 5,514 | 5 ppb |
| Town Of River Bend | 2,846 | 0 (not detected) |
| Vanceboro Water System | 1,864 | 3.4 ppb |
| Cove City, Town Of | 440 | 0 (not detected) |
| Dover, Town Of | 425 | 0 (not detected) |
| Norris Mhp | 91 | 0 (not detected) |
Your move
Look up your address in New Bern, City Of's service line inventory. If it says lead, galvanized or unknown, test your tap. If your own line is lead, replacing the private side runs about $1,200-$12,300 (EPA average about $4,700). Ask New Bern, 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. Small systems behave differently: why small systems go over more often.