Big Flats Water District 5, NY
Lead detected, under the action levels
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 2 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
Big Flats Water District 5 serves about 8,489 people through 1,580 service connections, which makes it a medium-sized system under EPA's size classes. It is owned by a local government (city, town, county or district) and draws groundwater, in Chemung County, New York. EPA system ID: NY0701011; phone on file: 607-562-8443. Ask them for your address in their service line inventory - every system had to publish one by Oct 2024.
Every lead result on file
That is down 3.9 ppb from 5.9 ppb in the period ending 2022. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Big Flats Water District 5 is 5.9 ppb across 4 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 2 ppb |
| 2022 | 5.9 ppb |
| 2019 | 4.8 ppb |
| 2016 | 3.4 ppb |
How Big Flats Water District 5 compares
Of the 2,077 New York systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 1.5 ppb; 17 are over 15 ppb right now and 165 have gone over at some point. Big Flats Water District 5's 2 ppb sits at the 60th percentile in New York and the 73rd nationally (higher means more lead).
Other water systems in Chemung County
20 other systems share Chemung County; 8 of them have a higher latest lead result than Big Flats Water District 5. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Elmira Water Board | 54,000 | 1.1 ppb |
| Horseheads Village | 15,000 | 3 ppb |
| Wellsburg Village | 580 | 1 ppb |
| Van Etten Town | 532 | 2 ppb |
| Beaver Valley Water District | 365 | 1 ppb |
| Carriage Estates | 300 | 1.41 ppb |
| Holly Park Terrace | 300 | 5.44 ppb |
| Millport Village Water Supply | 292 | 9.8 ppb |
| Big Flats Water District 4 | 266 | 2 ppb |
| Westover Hills Mhp | 200 | 0 (not detected) |
What to do in your house
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Big Flats, NY 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 Flats Water District 5 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. Size matters more than most people expect: small vs large water systems.