St Marys Area Water Auth, PA
Lead detected, under the action levels
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 3.31 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.
St Marys Area Water Auth at a glance
St Marys Area Water Auth serves about 19,588 people through 7,412 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 Elk County, Pennsylvania. EPA system ID: PA6240016; phone on file: 814-834-4362. 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 2022 (3.4 ppb) the latest result is about the same. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for St Marys Area Water Auth is 5 ppb across 4 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 3.31 ppb |
| 2022 | 3.4 ppb |
| 2019 | 5 ppb |
| 2016 | 0 (not detected) |
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. St Marys Area Water Auth's 3.31 ppb sits at the 62nd percentile in Pennsylvania and the 84th nationally (higher means more lead).
Nearby utilities
7 other systems share Elk County; 2 of them have a higher latest lead result than St Marys Area Water Auth. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Ridgway Borough Water System | 4,700 | 7.7 ppb |
| Johnsonburg Municipal Auth | 2,413 | - |
| Ridgway Twp Water Auth | 1,763 | - |
| Jay Twp Water Authority | 1,131 | 17.16 ppb |
| Toby Water | 440 | - |
| Jones Twp Municipal Authority | 396 | - |
| Highland Twp Municipal Auth | 286 | - |
Next steps for Saint Marys, PA
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Saint Marys, 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 St Marys Area Water 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.