Arlington Water Dept, VT
Lead detected, under the action levels
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 2.2 ppb (monitoring period 2021-2023). The federal action level is 15 ppb today and drops to 10 ppb in Nov 2027; EPA's health goal is 0. Lead was measured in sampled homes but the 90th percentile is under both action levels. EPA's health goal for lead is zero, so test your own tap if your home was built before 1986 or anyone in it is pregnant or a young child.
About Arlington Water Dept
Arlington Water Dept serves about 1,250 people through 526 service connections, which makes it a small system under EPA's size classes. It is owned by a local government (city, town, county or district) and draws groundwater, in Bennington County, Vermont. EPA system ID: VT0005013; phone on file: 802-379-9916. Ask them for your address in their service line inventory - every system had to publish one by Oct 2024.
Every lead result on file
Against the period ending 2020 (2.1 ppb) the latest result is about the same. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Arlington Water Dept is 5.7 ppb across 3 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2023 | 2.2 ppb |
| 2020 | 2.1 ppb |
| 2017 | 5.7 ppb |
Where this result ranks
Of the 372 Vermont systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 1.4 ppb; 7 are over 15 ppb right now and 65 have gone over at some point. Arlington Water Dept's 2.2 ppb sits at the 66th percentile in Vermont and the 75th nationally (higher means more lead).
Other water systems in Bennington County
24 other systems share Bennington County; 5 of them have a higher latest lead result than Arlington Water Dept. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Bennington Water Dept | 13,250 | 1.2 ppb |
| Bromley Water Company | 4,300 | 3.4 ppb |
| Manchester Water Dept | 4,140 | 2 ppb |
| North Bennington Water Dept | 1,700 | 1.6 ppb |
| Bennington College | 1,000 | 2.6 ppb |
| Shaftsbury Water System | 950 | 0 (not detected) |
| Pownal Fire District 2 | 682 | 1.3 ppb |
| Dorset Fire District 1 | 530 | 2.1 ppb |
| Readsboro Town Of | 375 | 1.7 ppb |
| Piper Ridge Condominium | 362 | 1.9 ppb |
Next steps for Arlington, VT
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Arlington, VT 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 Arlington Water Dept 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. Systems that went over once often dip back under; here is what that means.