Philadelphia Water Department, PA
Lead detected, under the action levels
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 2 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.
Philadelphia Water Department at a glance
Philadelphia Water Department serves about 1,600,000 people through 524,021 service connections, which makes it a very large system under EPA's size classes. It is owned by a local government (city, town, county or district) and draws surface water, in Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania. EPA system ID: PA1510001; phone on file: 215-685-6257. 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 2022 (2 ppb) the latest result is about the same. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Philadelphia Water Department is 3 ppb across 3 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 2 ppb |
| 2022 | 2 ppb |
| 2019 | 3 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. Philadelphia Water Department's 2 ppb sits at the 52nd percentile in Pennsylvania and the 73rd nationally (higher means more lead).
Your move
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Philadelphia, 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 Philadelphia Water Department 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. The action level is dropping - the 10 ppb rule from 2027.