Beech Bottom Water Dept, WV
Lead detected, under the action levels
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 0.33 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.
Who runs the water here
Beech Bottom Water Dept serves about 610 people through 230 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 Brooke County, West Virginia. EPA system ID: WV3300502; phone on file: 304-394-5545. 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 2022 (0.28 ppb) the latest result is about the same. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Beech Bottom Water Dept is 2.4 ppb across 5 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2023 | 0.33 ppb |
| 2022 | 0.28 ppb |
| 2019 | 0.5 ppb |
| 2017 | 0.5 ppb |
| 2016 | 2.4 ppb |
Where this result ranks
Of the 408 West Virginia systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 0.9 ppb; 4 are over 15 ppb right now and 20 have gone over at some point. Beech Bottom Water Dept's 0.33 ppb sits at the 24th percentile in West Virginia and the 42nd nationally (higher means more lead).
Nearby utilities
7 other systems share Brooke County; 4 of them have a higher latest lead result than Beech Bottom Water Dept. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Weirton Area Water Board | 19,676 | 0.74 ppb |
| Follansbee Hooverson Heights | 4,970 | 1.5 ppb |
| Wellsburg, City Of | 4,019 | 0 (not detected) |
| Follansbee Municipal | 3,145 | 1.5 ppb |
| Washington Pike Psd | 2,967 | 0 (not detected) |
| Hammond Psd | 2,186 | 0 (not detected) |
| Brooke County Psd | 240 | 0.41 ppb |
Your move
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Beech Bottom, WV 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 Beech Bottom 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.