Bernie Pws, MO
Lead detected, under the action levels
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 6.43 ppb (monitoring period 2023-2025). 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
Bernie Pws serves about 1,898 people through 832 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 Stoddard County, Missouri. EPA system ID: MO4010066; phone on file: 573-293-5318. They can tell you what your service line is made of and whether they pay to replace it.
Every lead result on file
Against the period ending 2023 (6.43 ppb) the latest result is about the same. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Bernie Pws is 10.4 ppb across 7 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb (3 over 10 ppb).
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 6.43 ppb |
| 2023 | 6.43 ppb |
| 2022 | 10.4 ppb over 10 |
| 2020 | 10.4 ppb over 10 |
| 2019 | 5.49 ppb |
| 2017 | 5.49 ppb |
| 2016 | 10.2 ppb over 10 |
Against other Missouri systems
Of the 1,674 Missouri systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 1.04 ppb; 2 are over 15 ppb right now and 74 have gone over at some point. Bernie Pws's 6.43 ppb sits at the 95th percentile in Missouri and the 94th nationally (higher means more lead).
Other water systems in Stoddard County
15 other systems share Stoddard County; 1 of them has a higher latest lead result than Bernie Pws. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Dexter Pws | 8,200 | 2.03 ppb |
| Stoddard County Pwsd 1 | 3,000 | 1.52 ppb |
| Bloomfield Pws | 1,980 | 0 (not detected) |
| Stoddard County Pwsd 4 | 1,530 | 11.5 ppb |
| Advance Pws | 1,400 | 3.1 ppb |
| Puxico Pws | 890 | 0 (not detected) |
| Stoddard County Pwsd 6 | 840 | 1.16 ppb |
| Stoddard County Pwsd 5 | 650 | 0 (not detected) |
| Stoddard County Pwsd 7 | 500 | 0.98 ppb |
| Bell City Pws | 428 | 2.74 ppb |
Next steps for Bernie, MO
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Bernie, MO 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 Bernie Pws 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.