Birchwood Waterworks, WI
Lead detected, under the action levels
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 1 ppb (monitoring period 2025-2025). 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
Birchwood Waterworks serves about 442 people through 163 service connections, which makes it a very small system under EPA's size classes. It is owned by a local government (city, town, county or district) and draws groundwater, in Washburn County, Wisconsin. EPA system ID: WI8660302. Ask the utility on your bill for your address in their service line inventory.
Lead results over time
Against the period ending 2024 (0 ppb) the latest result is about the same. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Birchwood Waterworks is 1 ppb across 13 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 1 ppb |
| 2024 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2023 | 1 ppb |
| 2023 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2022 | 1 ppb |
| 2021 | 1 ppb |
| 2021 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2020 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2019 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2019 | 1 ppb |
| 2018 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2018 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2017 | 0.74 ppb |
Where this result ranks
Of the 947 Wisconsin systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 1.33 ppb; 6 are over 15 ppb right now and 71 have gone over at some point. Birchwood Waterworks's 1 ppb sits at the 42nd percentile in Wisconsin and the 53rd nationally (higher means more lead).
Nearby utilities
5 other systems share Washburn County; 2 of them have a higher latest lead result than Birchwood Waterworks. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Spooner Waterworks | 2,653 | 3 ppb |
| Shell Lake Waterworks | 950 | 1.3 ppb |
| Minong Waterworks | 561 | 0.97 ppb |
| Beaver Brook Sanitary District | 200 | 0.5 ppb |
| Buliks Mobile Home Park | 93 | 0 (not detected) |
Your move
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Birchwood, WI 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 Birchwood Waterworks whether it covers that cost before hiring anyone - many utilities now do. Its latest copper 90th percentile is 1895 ppb (copper action level 1,300 ppb).
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.