Cole County Pwsd 5, MO
Above the federal action level
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 15.1 ppb (monitoring period 2024-2026). The federal action level is 15 ppb today and drops to 10 ppb in Nov 2027; EPA's health goal is 0. In the most recent monitoring period, more than 10% of the sampled homes measured above 15 ppb. Use a filter certified to NSF/ANSI 53 for lead for drinking and cooking now, and test your own tap.
About Cole County Pwsd 5
Cole County Pwsd 5 serves about 350 people through 102 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 Cole County, Missouri. EPA system ID: MO3024164; phone on file: 573-477-3497. Ask them for your address in their service line inventory - every system had to publish one by Oct 2024.
Lead results over time
That is up 11.47 ppb from 3.63 ppb in the period ending 2023. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Cole County Pwsd 5 is 15.1 ppb across 6 monitoring periods, 1 of them over the 15 ppb action level.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2026 | 15.1 ppb over 15 |
| 2023 | 3.63 ppb |
| 2022 | 1.18 ppb |
| 2020 | 1.18 ppb |
| 2019 | 1.89 ppb |
| 2017 | 1.89 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. Cole County Pwsd 5's 15.1 ppb sits at the 100th percentile in Missouri and the 99th nationally (higher means more lead).
Other water systems in Cole County
11 other systems share Cole County; 0 of them have a higher latest lead result than Cole County Pwsd 5. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Mo American Jefferson City District | 30,075 | 2 ppb |
| Cole County Pwsd 1 | 16,548 | 5.13 ppb |
| Cole County Pwsd 2 | 13,107 | 8.58 ppb |
| Cole County Pwsd 4 | 7,568 | 8.81 ppb |
| Cole County Pwsd 3 | 2,000 | 1.88 ppb |
| Mo American Wardsville | 1,506 | 2 ppb |
| Russellville Pws | 800 | 1.69 ppb |
| Centertown Pws | 278 | 0.59 ppb |
| Mo American Lake Carmel | 215 | 2 ppb |
| Eugene Pws | 125 | 0.78 ppb |
Next steps for St Thomas, MO
Use a filter certified to NSF/ANSI 53 for lead on the tap you drink and cook from, now, before you test. Then test your own tap. If your own line is lead, replacing the private side runs about $1,200-$12,300 (EPA average about $4,700). Ask Cole County Pwsd 5 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.