Northampton Bucks Co Mun Auth, PA
Lead detected, under the action levels
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 1 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.
Who runs the water here
Northampton Bucks Co Mun Auth serves about 36,750 people through 11,893 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 surface water, in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. EPA system ID: PA1090089; phone on file: 215-355-1450. Ask them for your address in their service line inventory - every system had to publish one by Oct 2024.
Northampton Bucks Co Mun Auth's lead record
Against the period ending 2022 (0.5 ppb) the latest result is about the same. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Northampton Bucks Co Mun Auth is 2 ppb across 4 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 1 ppb |
| 2022 | 0.5 ppb |
| 2019 | 2 ppb |
| 2016 | 1 ppb |
Against other Pennsylvania systems
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. Northampton Bucks Co Mun Auth's 1 ppb sits at the 34th percentile in Pennsylvania and the 56th nationally (higher means more lead).
Other water systems in Bucks County
68 other systems share Bucks County; 6 of them have a higher latest lead result than Northampton Bucks Co Mun Auth. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Lower Bucks Co Joint Mun Auth | 63,007 | 0 (not detected) |
| Aqua Pa Bensalem | 59,001 | 0 (not detected) |
| Bcwsa Main Lower South | 52,621 | 0 (not detected) |
| Newtown Artesian Water Co | 38,500 | 0 (not detected) |
| Warminster Municipal Authority | 36,000 | 0 (not detected) |
| Pa American Water Co Yardley | 33,171 | 1 ppb |
| Aqua Pa Bristol | 28,727 | 0 (not detected) |
| Falls Twp Water & Sewer Dept | 24,400 | 1.6 ppb |
| Nwwa Warrington Township | 21,588 | 0.6 ppb |
| Upper Southampton Mun Auth | 16,000 | 0 (not detected) |
What to do in your house
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Richboro, 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 Northampton Bucks Co Mun Auth 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.