Tipton Water Supply, IA
Lead detected, under the action levels
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 1 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.
Tipton Water Supply at a glance
Tipton Water Supply serves about 3,149 people through 1,431 service connections, which makes it a small system under EPA's size classes. It is owned by a local government (city, town, county or district) and draws groundwater, in Cedar County, Iowa. EPA system ID: IA1689022; phone on file: 563-886-4877. 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 2020 (2 ppb) the latest result is about the same. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Tipton Water Supply is 2 ppb across 3 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2023 | 1 ppb |
| 2020 | 2 ppb |
| 2017 | 1 ppb |
How Tipton Water Supply compares
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. Tipton Water Supply's 1 ppb sits at the 44th percentile in Iowa and the 54th nationally (higher means more lead).
Nearby utilities
12 other systems share Cedar County; 10 of them have a higher latest lead result than Tipton Water Supply. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| West Branch Water Works | 2,509 | 3 ppb |
| Durant Water Supply | 1,871 | 6 ppb |
| Clarence Water Supply | 1,039 | 2 ppb |
| Mechanicsville Water Dept | 1,020 | 4 ppb |
| Lowden Water Supply | 807 | 2 ppb |
| Stanwood Water Supply | 637 | 8 ppb |
| West Branch Mhp | 400 | 2 ppb |
| Bennett Waterworks | 347 | 60 ppb |
| Yankee Grove Hoa | 64 | 2 ppb |
| Coach Road Well Association | 60 | 1 ppb |
What to do in your house
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Tipton, 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 Tipton 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. Systems that went over once often dip back under; here is what that means.