White Bear Lake, MN
Exceeded the action level in the past
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 2 ppb (monitoring period 2023-2025). 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.
White Bear Lake at a glance
White Bear Lake serves about 25,634 people through 7,998 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 groundwater, in Ramsey County, Minnesota. EPA system ID: MN1620024; phone on file: 6514298516. Call that number and ask whether your address has a lead, galvanized or unknown service line.
Every lead result on file
That is down 5 ppb from 7 ppb in the period ending 2022. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for White Bear Lake is 19.9 ppb across 7 monitoring periods, 1 of them over the 15 ppb action level.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 2 ppb |
| 2022 | 7 ppb |
| 2021 | 4 ppb |
| 2020 | 1 ppb |
| 2020 | 1 ppb |
| 2019 | 19.9 ppb over 15 |
| 2016 | 3 ppb |
Against other Minnesota systems
Of the 966 Minnesota systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 0 ppb; 7 are over 15 ppb right now and 48 have gone over at some point. White Bear Lake's 2 ppb sits at the 77th percentile in Minnesota and the 73rd nationally (higher means more lead).
Neighbouring systems
15 other systems share Ramsey County; 2 of them have a higher latest lead result than White Bear Lake. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Saint Paul Regional Water Services | 392,529 | 10 ppb |
| Roseville | 35,343 | 6 ppb |
| Shoreview | 26,750 | 1 ppb |
| New Brighton | 22,902 | 2 ppb |
| Mounds View | 13,256 | 2 ppb |
| North Saint Paul | 13,134 | 2 ppb |
| Vadnais Heights | 13,025 | 1 ppb |
| White Bear Township | 11,699 | 1 ppb |
| Little Canada | 10,400 | 0 (not detected) |
| Arden Hills | 9,939 | 2 ppb |
Next steps for White Bear Lake, MN
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; White Bear Lake, MN 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 White Bear Lake 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.