Your water report is mostly one table, and it reads left to right
To read your annual water quality report, go straight to the results table and take each row left to right: the substance, the limit, what the year's tests found, whether there was a violation, and where it likely came from.
Compiled from the sources listed at the end. Sources checked .
For houses on a water utility, in all our towns.
Its other name is the consumer confidence report. The Veolia video on this page walks the same columns using a New York sample report; it opens with company messaging, and its zip code lookup only helps Veolia customers. Find your own copy through who supplies your town.
What do the columns mean?
- MCL. The maximum allowed, set by EPA.
- Average, highest and range. What the year's tests came to, and how far apart they ran.
- Violation. A flag for results above the federal or state limit.
- Likely source. The last column says where such a substance usually comes from.
- ND, ppm, ppb. Not detected, parts per million and parts per billion.
What does a secondary limit look like in practice?
Lacey gives a clean example. Its 2026 report shows odor at 1.16 to 4.19 TON in 2025 data, over the 3 TON secondary limit. Secondary limits deal with things like taste, staining and smell. EPA calls them guidance on nuisance chemicals, a separate list from the primary health-based table. A household noticing a smell would look to that row first. It concerns a secondary limit, and the health-based rows are read separately.
Why does a range need the violation column beside it?
A range shows what individual tests found, while the column gives the report's verdict. Barnegat's 2026 report lists gross alpha of 5.8 to 16.3 pCi/L for 2023 with combined radium at 3.3 to 4.2, and its table marks no violation. Read those together. If a figure worries you, ask the utility how the result was judged and what it does about it.
Some rows work differently. Lead and copper are often shown as a 90th percentile: Barnegat's 2025 figures are 0.7 ppb for lead and 0.09 ppm for copper. For service pipes themselves, see our brief on lead line notices.
Also asked
What if my report has no aquifer name?
Look at the opening pages, where suppliers usually describe their wells and sources, then ask the office.
Do these numbers describe my own tap?
They describe the system's sampling. Your house pipes can change some results, lead and copper above all, so a tap test is a separate matter.
Where this comes from
- Lacey MUA 2026 report - odor row and secondary limit.
- Barnegat 2026 report - gross alpha, radium, lead and copper rows.
- EPA secondary standards - what secondary levels cover.
- EPA national primary drinking water regulations - primary limits.