Water report · not indexed
What is in the water at 17602
2 public water systems serve this ZIP code in the federal records. Everything below comes from EPA monitoring data, and everything missing is named.
CITY OF LANCASTER
PWSID PA7360058 · PA · serves 120,000 people
PFAS and lithium
6 compounds detected at or above the reporting limit under EPA’s UCMR 5 monitoring, across 23 samples.
| Compound | Highest detected | Samples | Most recent |
|---|---|---|---|
| PFHxA | 0.029 µg/L | 4 | 9/5/2024 |
| PFOA | 0.024 µg/L | 4 | 9/5/2024 |
| PFPeA | 0.022 µg/L | 4 | 9/5/2024 |
| PFBA | 0.015 µg/L | 3 | 9/5/2024 |
| PFBS | 0.0098 µg/L | 4 | 9/5/2024 |
| PFHpA | 0.0081 µg/L | 4 | 9/5/2024 |
A detection is a measurement, not a violation and not a health finding. EPA states that UCMR 5 results do not indicate compliance or non-compliance with any limit.
Health-based violations
No open health-based violation on record. This covers MCL, treatment technique and MRDL violations in SDWIS that have not been returned to compliance. It excludes monitoring and reporting violations, which are the large majority nationally, so this is not “no violations”, and SDWIS completeness varies by state.
Hardness
We do not state a hardness for any system, and this is why. Hardness here would come from environmental monitoring stations that happen to sit inside your water system’s service area. We checked that method against the figures twenty large utilities publish about their own supply: it agreed with the utility fewer than half the time, and where it was wrong it usually read HIGH. Cities supplied from a distant watershed came off worst, because the stations end up sampling local groundwater nobody drinks. We are paid a referral fee when somebody asks for an installer, so a number that overstates hardness is the last error we are willing to publish. Your utility publishes its own hardness in its annual water quality report, and that figure is the one to trust.
EAST HEMPFIELD WATER AUTH
PWSID PA7360063 · PA · serves 20,988 people
PFAS and lithium
5 compounds detected at or above the reporting limit under EPA’s UCMR 5 monitoring, across 18 samples.
| Compound | Highest detected | Samples | Most recent |
|---|---|---|---|
| PFOA | 0.009 µg/L | 3 | 6/18/2025 |
| PFBS | 0.0076 µg/L | 5 | 6/18/2025 |
| PFPeA | 0.0052 µg/L | 4 | 6/18/2025 |
| PFOS | 0.005 µg/L | 2 | 6/18/2025 |
| PFHxA | 0.0042 µg/L | 4 | 6/18/2025 |
A detection is a measurement, not a violation and not a health finding. EPA states that UCMR 5 results do not indicate compliance or non-compliance with any limit.
Health-based violations
No open health-based violation on record. This covers MCL, treatment technique and MRDL violations in SDWIS that have not been returned to compliance. It excludes monitoring and reporting violations, which are the large majority nationally, so this is not “no violations”, and SDWIS completeness varies by state.
Hardness
We do not state a hardness for any system, and this is why. Hardness here would come from environmental monitoring stations that happen to sit inside your water system’s service area. We checked that method against the figures twenty large utilities publish about their own supply: it agreed with the utility fewer than half the time, and where it was wrong it usually read HIGH. Cities supplied from a distant watershed came off worst, because the stations end up sampling local groundwater nobody drinks. We are paid a referral fee when somebody asks for an installer, so a number that overstates hardness is the last error we are willing to publish. Your utility publishes its own hardness in its annual water quality report, and that figure is the one to trust.
What this report cannot tell you
Every figure describes water at a sampling point: a treatment plant, an entry point to the distribution system, or a monitoring station. None of it describes water arriving at your tap. Plumbing between the two can add lead and copper, and if your home was built before 1986 a test kit tells you something no federal dataset can.
Sources: EPA UCMR 5 occurrence (final release, frozen July 2026) · EPA SDWIS health-based violations · USGS and state monitoring via the Water Quality Portal · EPA Public Water System Service Area Boundaries v3. Compiled 2026-09-01.