Birch Hill Water System, VT
Lead detected, under the action levels
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 0.8 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.
Birch Hill Water System at a glance
Birch Hill Water System serves about 45 people through 14 service connections, which makes it a very small system under EPA's size classes. It is privately owned and draws groundwater, in Lamoille County, Vermont. EPA system ID: VT0005650; phone on file: 978-764-5181. Call that number and ask whether your address has a lead, galvanized or unknown service line.
Every lead result on file
Against the period ending 2022 (1.8 ppb) the latest result is about the same. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Birch Hill Water System is 3 ppb across 5 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 0.8 ppb |
| 2022 | 1.8 ppb |
| 2019 | 1.8 ppb |
| 2018 | 1.4 ppb |
| 2016 | 3 ppb |
Against other Vermont systems
Of the 372 Vermont systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 1.4 ppb; 7 are over 15 ppb right now and 65 have gone over at some point. Birch Hill Water System's 0.8 ppb sits at the 37th percentile in Vermont and the 47th nationally (higher means more lead).
Nearby utilities
21 other systems share Lamoille County; 11 of them have a higher latest lead result than Birch Hill Water System. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Stowe Water Dept | 3,600 | 14.3 ppb |
| Smugglers Notch Water System | 2,960 | 4.9 ppb |
| Morrisville Water And Light | 2,935 | 2.4 ppb |
| Johnson Village Water Dept | 1,350 | 2.2 ppb |
| Jeffersonville Water System | 700 | 0 (not detected) |
| Hyde Park Water System | 462 | 0 (not detected) |
| Sterling View Cooperative Community Inc | 290 | 0 (not detected) |
| Hyde Park Fire District 1 | 275 | 0 (not detected) |
| Cambridge Village Water | 262 | 0 (not detected) |
| Mountainside Resort | 240 | 2.7 ppb |
What to do in your house
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Stowe, VT 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 Hill Water System 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. Why sampled homes are the worst-case ones is in the guide to reading the number. The action level is dropping - the 10 ppb rule from 2027.