Swaledale Water Supply, IA
Lead detected, under the action levels
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 5.34 ppb (monitoring period 2021-2023). 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.
Swaledale Water Supply at a glance
Swaledale Water Supply serves about 144 people through 93 service connections, which makes it a very small system under EPA's size classes. It is owned by a local government (city, town, county or district) and draws groundwater, in Cerro Gordo County, Iowa. EPA system ID: IA1778008; phone on file: 319-883-6554. Ask them for your address in their service line inventory - every system had to publish one by Oct 2024.
Every lead result on file
That is up 3.34 ppb from 2 ppb in the period ending 2020. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Swaledale Water Supply is 6 ppb across 3 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2023 | 5.34 ppb |
| 2020 | 2 ppb |
| 2017 | 6 ppb |
Where this result ranks
Of the 1,066 Iowa systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 1.4 ppb; 4 are over 15 ppb right now and 36 have gone over at some point. Swaledale Water Supply's 5.34 ppb sits at the 90th percentile in Iowa and the 92nd nationally (higher means more lead).
Neighbouring systems
8 other systems share Cerro Gordo County; 0 of them have a higher latest lead result than Swaledale Water Supply. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Mason City Water Department | 27,338 | 2.9 ppb |
| Clear Lake Water Department | 7,687 | 3.63 ppb |
| Rockwell Water Supply | 1,071 | 2.28 ppb |
| Ventura Water Works | 717 | 0 (not detected) |
| Thornton Water Supply | 400 | 2 ppb |
| Plymouth Water Supply | 378 | 2 ppb |
| Meservey Water Supply | 222 | 2 ppb |
| Long Beach Mobile Park | 50 | 0 (not detected) |
Your move
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Marshalltown, IA 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 Swaledale Water Supply 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.