Chattooga Club, NC
Lead detected, under the action levels
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 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.
Who runs the water here
Chattooga Club serves about 213 people through 84 service connections, which makes it a very small system under EPA's size classes. It is privately owned and draws groundwater, in Jackson County, North Carolina. EPA system ID: NC0150179. Ask the utility on your bill for your address in their service line inventory.
Every lead result on file
That is up 2 ppb from 6 ppb in the period ending 2022. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Chattooga Club is 8 ppb across 2 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 8 ppb |
| 2022 | 6 ppb |
How Chattooga Club compares
Of the 1,925 North Carolina systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 0 ppb; 5 are over 15 ppb right now and 75 have gone over at some point. Chattooga Club's 8 ppb sits at the 97th percentile in North Carolina and the 96th nationally (higher means more lead).
Neighbouring systems
35 other systems share Jackson County; 2 of them have a higher latest lead result than Chattooga Club. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Western Carolina Univ Wtp | 7,800 | 0 (not detected) |
| Tuckaseigee Water & Sewer Auth | 7,528 | 0 (not detected) |
| Fairfield Sapphire | 3,873 | 0 (not detected) |
| Hh Water, Llc | 770 | 0 (not detected) |
| Trillium Links & Village | 610 | 0 (not detected) |
| Highlands Cove S/D | 604 | 0 (not detected) |
| Mountain Top Golf & Lake Club | 467 | 0 (not detected) |
| Wade Hampton Club | 429 | 0 (not detected) |
| Trillium Links West | 424 | 2.5 ppb |
| Bear Lake Reserve 1b | 396 | 4.9 ppb |
Next steps for Sapphire, NC
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Sapphire, NC 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 Chattooga Club 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.