Tap water · PA
Philadelphia Water Department
EPA system ID PA1510001 · serves about 1,600,000 people. Every US utility must publish an annual water quality report — here’s the official one (2025), and below it, our plain-English translation.
Read the official report →What Philadelphia Water Department found in 2025
34 detected analytes from the utility’s own annual report, hand-normalized — nothing was near or over a federal health-based limit.
| Detected | Level | Limit | % of limit | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 Haloacetic Acids (HAA5) | 41 ppb | 60 ppb | 68% | Within limit |
| Total Trihalomethanes (TTHM) | 51 ppb | 80 ppb | 64% | Within limit |
| Total Chlorine Residual | 2.54 ppm | 4 ppm | 64% | Within limit |
| Nitrate | 5.3 ppm | 10 ppm | 53% | Within limit |
| PFOA | 6.1 ppt | 14 ppt | 44% | Within limit |
| Fluoride | 0.75 ppm | 2 ppm | 38% | Within limit |
| Alpha Emitters | 5.32 pCi/L | 15 pCi/L | 35% | Within limit |
| PFNA | 2.6 ppt | 10 ppt | 26% | Within limit |
| PFOS | 4.6 ppt | 18 ppt | 26% | Within limit |
| PFHxS | 1.7 ppt | 10 ppt | 17% | Within limit |
| Copper (90th percentile) | 0.21 ppm | 1.3 ppm | 16% | Within limit |
| Lead (90th percentile) | 2 ppb | 15 ppb | 13% | Within limit |
| Antimony | 0.001 ppm | 0.006 ppm | 12% | Within limit |
| Total Coliform | 0.3 % | 5 % | 6% | Within limit |
| Barium | 0.043 ppm | 2 ppm | 2% | Within limit |
| Chromium | 2 ppb | 100 ppb | 2% | Within limit |
| Iron | 0 ppm | 0.3 ppm | 0% | Within limit |
| (HFPO-DA)/GenX | 0 ppt | 10 ppt | 0% | Within limit |
| Hardness | 169 ppm | — | — | No federal limit |
| Alkalinity | 76 ppm | — | — | No federal limit |
| Sodium | 55 ppm | — | — | No federal limit |
| Sodium (average mg in) | 7 mg | — | — | No federal limit |
| PFBS | 6.1 ppt | — | — | No federal limit |
| PFHxA — 2024 monitoring | 5 ppt | — | — | No federal limit |
| PFPeA — 2024 monitoring | 4.9 ppt | — | — | No federal limit |
| PFOA — 2024 monitoring | 4.6 ppt | — | — | No federal limit |
| PFOS — 2024 monitoring | 3.6 ppt | — | — | No federal limit |
| PFBS — 2024 monitoring | 3.6 ppt | — | — | No federal limit |
| PFBA — 2024 monitoring | 2.3 ppt | — | — | No federal limit |
| PFHpA — 2024 monitoring | 1 ppt | — | — | No federal limit |
| PFNA — 2024 monitoring | 0.8 ppt | — | — | No federal limit |
| E. coli | 0.3 % | — | — | No federal limit |
| Turbidity (highest) | 0.205 NTU | — | — | No federal limit |
| Total Organic Carbon | 0 | — | — | No federal limit |
Levels and limits are as printed in the utility’s report (“limit” is the EPA MCL, action level, residual limit, or secondary guideline that applies to that row; “ND” = not detected). Utilities publish these reports annually — we re-check every covered utility each July, after the federal publication deadline. Detected doesn’t mean dangerous — most detections sit far below their limits. This is education, not medical advice.
Your tap, if it were a bottle
How Philadelphia Water Department water stacks up against the bottled aisle
Same minerals, same units — the tap values below come from the utility’s report, placed next to the closest match in our bottled-water database.
| Mineral | Your tap | Closest bottled match |
|---|---|---|
| Sodium | 55 mg/L | Ferrarelle at 50 mg/L |
Tap values are the headline levels from the utility’s annual report (often a highest or average figure); bottled values are label- or report-derived. A closest match is a numeric comparison, not an equivalence or an endorsement.
Zip codes covered
19102 · 19103 · 19104 · 19106 · 19107 · 19108 · 19109 · 19111 · 19112 · 19114 · 19115 · 19116 · 19118 · 19119 · 19120 · 19121 · 19122 · 19123 · 19124 · 19125 · 19126 · 19127 · 19128 · 19129 · 19130 · 19131 · 19132 · 19133 · 19134 · 19135 · 19136 · 19137 · 19138 · 19139 · 19140 · 19141 · 19142 · 19143 · 19144 · 19145 · 19146 · 19147 · 19148 · 19149 · 19150 · 19151 · 19152 · 19153 · 19154
Boundary zips partially served by other systems are deliberately unlisted — check your exact zip.