Waterbury Water Department, CT
Exceeded the action level in the past
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 0.01 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. The latest result is under the action level, but this system has gone over 15 ppb before. Lead comes from pipes, not the source water, so a home with a lead service line can still be exposed. Test your own tap.
About Waterbury Water Department
Waterbury Water Department serves about 107,271 people through 26,915 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 New Haven County, Connecticut. EPA system ID: CT1510011; phone on file: 203-574-8251. Call that number and ask whether your address has a lead, galvanized or unknown service line.
Every lead result on file
Against the period ending 2025 (0.05 ppb) the latest result is about the same. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Waterbury Water Department is 34 ppb across 34 monitoring periods, 2 of them over the 15 ppb action level.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 0.01 ppb |
| 2025 | 0.05 ppb |
| 2025 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2025 | 4 ppb |
| 2024 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2024 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2024 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2023 | 1 ppb |
| 2023 | 1 ppb |
| 2023 | 1 ppb |
| 2022 | 2 ppb |
| 2022 | 1 ppb |
| 2022 | 1 ppb |
| 2022 | 1 ppb |
| 2021 | 6 ppb |
| 2021 | 7 ppb |
| 2021 | 34 ppb over 15 |
| 2020 | 10 ppb |
| 2020 | 26 ppb over 15 |
| 2020 | 10 ppb |
| 2019 | 4 ppb |
| 2019 | 1 ppb |
| 2019 | 1 ppb |
| 2019 | 1 ppb |
| 2018 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2018 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2018 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2017 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2017 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2017 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2017 | 6 ppb |
| 2016 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2016 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2016 | 0 (not detected) |
Where this result ranks
Of the 493 Connecticut systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 0.8 ppb; 2 are over 15 ppb right now and 49 have gone over at some point. Waterbury Water Department's 0.01 ppb sits at the 41st percentile in Connecticut and the 40th nationally (higher means more lead).
Neighbouring systems
30 other systems share New Haven County; 12 of them have a higher latest lead result than Waterbury Water Department. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Regional Water Authority | 418,900 | 0 (not detected) |
| Meriden Water Division | 58,441 | 0 (not detected) |
| Wallingford Water Department | 37,267 | 0 (not detected) |
| Ctwc - Shoreline Region-Guilford System | 33,975 | 0 (not detected) |
| Ctwc - Naugatuck Region-Central System | 22,735 | 0 (not detected) |
| Aquarion-Valley | 13,080 | 1.1 ppb |
| Heritage Water Company | 7,300 | 0.7 ppb |
| Wolcott Water Department | 2,550 | 0 (not detected) |
| Ctwc - Legend Hill System | 1,368 | 0 (not detected) |
| Aquarion-East Derby | 1,101 | 0 (not detected) |
What to do in your house
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Waterbury, CT 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 Waterbury 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. More in what a past exceedance means today.