Carter County Pwsd 1, MO
Lead detected, under the action levels
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 1.07 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
Carter County Pwsd 1 serves about 600 people through 176 service connections, which makes it a small system under EPA's size classes. It is owned by a local government (city, town, county or district) and draws groundwater, in Carter County, Missouri. EPA system ID: MO4024108; phone on file: 573-429-7797. Ask them for your address in their service line inventory - every system had to publish one by Oct 2024.
Carter County Pwsd 1's lead record
Against the period ending 2022 (1.16 ppb) the latest result is about the same. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Carter County Pwsd 1 is 2.29 ppb across 7 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 1.07 ppb |
| 2022 | 1.16 ppb |
| 2022 | 1.16 ppb |
| 2019 | 1.83 ppb |
| 2019 | 1.83 ppb |
| 2016 | 2.29 ppb |
| 2016 | 2.29 ppb |
Where this result ranks
Of the 1,674 Missouri systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 1.04 ppb; 2 are over 15 ppb right now and 74 have gone over at some point. Carter County Pwsd 1's 1.07 ppb sits at the 51st percentile in Missouri and the 56th nationally (higher means more lead).
Other water systems in Carter County
5 other systems share Carter County; 2 of them have a higher latest lead result than Carter County Pwsd 1. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Van Buren Pws | 819 | 3.41 ppb |
| Deer Run Reorganized Common Sewer Dist | 700 | 7.42 ppb |
| Ellsinore Pws | 500 | 0 (not detected) |
| Grandin Pws | 240 | 0 (not detected) |
| Carter County Pwsd 2 | 50 | 0 (not detected) |
Next steps for Van Buren, MO
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Van Buren, MO 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 Carter County Pwsd 1 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. The action level is dropping - the 10 ppb rule from 2027.