Big Field Water Association, MS
Lead detected, under the action levels
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 5.2 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.
Who runs the water here
Big Field Water Association serves about 580 people through 228 service connections, which makes it a small system under EPA's size classes. It is under mixed public and private ownership and draws groundwater, in Quitman County, Mississippi. EPA system ID: MS0600002; phone on file: 662-326-3322. Ask them for your address in their service line inventory - every system had to publish one by Oct 2024.
Big Field Water Association's lead record
That is up 3.1 ppb from 2.1 ppb in the period ending 2020. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Big Field Water Association is 5.2 ppb across 3 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2023 | 5.2 ppb |
| 2020 | 2.1 ppb |
| 2017 | 3.6 ppb |
How Big Field Water Association compares
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. Big Field Water Association's 5.2 ppb sits at the 95th percentile in Mississippi and the 92nd nationally (higher means more lead).
Neighbouring systems
10 other systems share Quitman County; 2 of them have a higher latest lead result than Big Field Water Association. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| City Of Marks | 2,099 | 3.2 ppb |
| Town Of Lambert | 1,167 | 0 (not detected) |
| Town Of Crowder | 682 | 3.3 ppb |
| South Lake Water Association | 570 | 1 ppb |
| South Quitman-S Lambert Utl | 528 | 1.6 ppb |
| West Lambert Water Association | 398 | 5.4 ppb |
| Town Of Sledge | 368 | 6.1 ppb |
| South Quitman-West Crowder | 185 | 0.7 ppb |
| Town Of Falcon | 124 | 1.4 ppb |
| Darling Water Association | 100 | 0.95 ppb |
Your move
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Marks, 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 Big Field Water Association 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.