Birch Creek Colony, MT
Lead detected, under the action levels
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 1 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.
About Birch Creek Colony
Birch Creek Colony serves about 120 people through 12 service connections, which makes it a very small system under EPA's size classes. It is privately owned and draws groundwater, in Pondera County, Montana. EPA system ID: MT0001781; phone on file: 406-289-3558. 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 2019 (0 ppb) the latest result is about the same. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Birch Creek Colony is 1 ppb across 2 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 1 ppb |
| 2019 | 0 (not detected) |
How Birch Creek Colony compares
Of the 753 Montana systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 1 ppb; 5 are over 15 ppb right now and 28 have gone over at some point. Birch Creek Colony's 1 ppb sits at the 51st percentile in Montana and the 51st nationally (higher means more lead).
Other water systems in Pondera County
9 other systems share Pondera County; 3 of them have a higher latest lead result than Birch Creek Colony. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Conrad Water Dept | 2,500 | 3 ppb |
| Tiber County Water District | 750 | 2 ppb |
| Valier Town Of | 452 | 1 ppb |
| Brady County Water Sewer District | 144 | 23 ppb |
| Ncmrwa Pondera Co Service Area | 144 | - |
| New Miami Colony | 130 | 0 (not detected) |
| Kingsbury Colony | 120 | 0 (not detected) |
| Pondera Colony Water Systems | 112 | 0 (not detected) |
| Midway Colony Inc | 92 | 0 (not detected) |
Next steps for Valier, MT
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Valier, MT 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 Birch Creek Colony 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. The lead result guide covers how utilities pick the homes they sample. Systems that went over once often dip back under; here is what that means.