Danvers Water Dept., MA
Exceeded the action level in the past
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 1.7 ppb (monitoring period 2026-2026). The federal action level is 15 ppb today and drops to 10 ppb in Nov 2027; EPA's health goal is 0. The latest result is under the action level, but this system has gone over 15 ppb before. Lead comes from pipes, not the source water, so a home with a lead service line can still be exposed. Test your own tap.
Danvers Water Dept. at a glance
Danvers Water Dept. serves about 28,087 people through 8,217 service connections, which makes it a large system under EPA's size classes. It is owned by a local government (city, town, county or district) and draws surface water, in Essex County, Massachusetts. EPA system ID: MA3071000; phone on file: 9787745054. 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 down 3 ppb from 4.7 ppb in the period ending 2023. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Danvers Water Dept. is 17.6 ppb across 9 monitoring periods, 1 of them over the 15 ppb action level.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2026 | 1.7 ppb |
| 2023 | 4.7 ppb |
| 2022 | 3.9 ppb |
| 2021 | 4.2 ppb |
| 2020 | 3.6 ppb |
| 2019 | 8.1 ppb |
| 2019 | 15 ppb over 10 |
| 2018 | 17.6 ppb over 15 |
| 2017 | 14.6 ppb over 10 |
Against other Massachusetts systems
Of the 535 Massachusetts systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 1.7 ppb; 13 are over 15 ppb right now and 66 have gone over at some point. Danvers Water Dept.'s 1.7 ppb sits at the 50th percentile in Massachusetts and the 67th nationally (higher means more lead).
Nearby utilities
36 other systems share Essex County; 11 of them have a higher latest lead result than Danvers Water Dept.. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Lynn Water And Sewer Comm | 101,253 | 2.4 ppb |
| Salem And Beverly Water Supply Board | 90,330 | 1.7 ppb |
| Lawrence Water Works | 89,143 | 0 (not detected) |
| Haverhill Water Dept | 61,277 | 0 (not detected) |
| Peabody Water Dept. | 54,481 | 4.18 ppb |
| Methuen Water Dept | 53,059 | 1.6 ppb |
| Beverly Water Dept | 47,461 | - |
| Salem Water Department | 44,480 | - |
| Gloucester Public Utility Division | 37,440 | 3 ppb |
| Andover Water Dept | 36,569 | 0 (not detected) |
Next steps for Middleton, MA
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Middleton, MA 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 Danvers Water Dept. 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. More in what a past exceedance means today.