Birch Creek Culinary, ID
Lead detected, under the action levels
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 1 ppb (monitoring period 2023-2023). 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.
About Birch Creek Culinary
Birch Creek Culinary serves about 120 people through 34 service connections, which makes it a very small system under EPA's size classes. It is privately owned and draws groundwater, in Franklin County, Idaho. EPA system ID: ID6210009; phone on file: 208-631-8470. 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 ppb) the latest result is about the same. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Birch Creek Culinary is 2 ppb across 7 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2023 | 1 ppb |
| 2022 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2019 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2018 | 1 ppb |
| 2017 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2017 | 2 ppb |
| 2016 | 0 (not detected) |
How Birch Creek Culinary compares
Of the 763 Idaho systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 1 ppb; 3 are over 15 ppb right now and 46 have gone over at some point. Birch Creek Culinary's 1 ppb sits at the 45th percentile in Idaho and the 51st nationally (higher means more lead).
Other water systems in Franklin County
14 other systems share Franklin County; 7 of them have a higher latest lead result than Birch Creek Culinary. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Preston City Of | 5,591 | 2 ppb |
| Fairview Water Dist | 1,300 | 3 ppb |
| Franklin City Of | 1,000 | 3 ppb |
| Dayton City Of | 510 | 2 ppb |
| Weston City Of | 490 | 1 ppb |
| Clifton City Of | 413 | 1 ppb |
| Whitney Nashville Water Works | 403 | 0 (not detected) |
| Banida Water And Sewer Dist | 180 | 1 ppb |
| Cub River Acres | 180 | 7 ppb |
| Preston Eastside Water Co | 120 | 2 ppb |
Next steps for Preston, ID
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Preston, ID 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 Culinary 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.