Bear Creek W/A-West, MS
Lead detected, under the action levels
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 1.6 ppb (monitoring period 2022-2024). 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.
Who runs the water here
Bear Creek W/A-West serves about 26,677 people through 9,877 service connections, which makes it a large system under EPA's size classes. It is under mixed public and private ownership and draws groundwater, in Madison County, Mississippi. EPA system ID: MS0450021; phone on file: 601-856-5969. They can tell you what your service line is made of and whether they pay to replace it.
Bear Creek W/A-West's lead record
That is down 2.3 ppb from 3.9 ppb in the period ending 2021. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Bear Creek W/A-West is 3.9 ppb across 4 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2024 | 1.6 ppb |
| 2021 | 3.9 ppb |
| 2018 | 3.7 ppb |
| 2016 | 3.9 ppb |
Against other Mississippi systems
Of the 973 Mississippi systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 1 ppb; 9 are over 15 ppb right now and 44 have gone over at some point. Bear Creek W/A-West's 1.6 ppb sits at the 71st percentile in Mississippi and the 65th nationally (higher means more lead).
Other water systems in Madison County
15 other systems share Madison County; 4 of them have a higher latest lead result than Bear Creek W/A-West. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| City Of Ridgeland | 24,340 | 1.3 ppb |
| Bear Creek W/A -East | 18,770 | 3.2 ppb |
| City Of Canton | 16,785 | 1.7 ppb |
| City Of Madison | 16,136 | 1.1 ppb |
| Cmu - Lake Caroline | 8,511 | 1.2 ppb |
| East Madison Water Assn-West | 7,339 | 1.6 ppb |
| Prvwsd-Twin Harbor | 2,973 | 0.8 ppb |
| Town Of Flora #1 | 1,653 | 0.6 ppb |
| Prvwsd-Main Harbor | 1,497 | 1.3 ppb |
| West Madison Utl Dist | 1,287 | 1.04 ppb |
Next steps for Canton, MS
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Canton, MS 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 Bear Creek W/A-West 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. The action level is dropping - the 10 ppb rule from 2027.