Fort Drum, NY
Lead detected, under the action levels
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 0.4 ppb (monitoring period 2022-2024). 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.
About Fort Drum
Fort Drum serves about 34,000 people through 1,750 service connections, which makes it a large system under EPA's size classes. It is federally owned and draws surface water, in Jefferson County, New York. EPA system ID: NY2212214; phone on file: 315-772-5260. Ask them for your address in their service line inventory - every system had to publish one by Oct 2024.
Every lead result on file
Against the period ending 2021 (0.7 ppb) the latest result is about the same. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Fort Drum is 1 ppb across 3 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2024 | 0.4 ppb |
| 2021 | 0.7 ppb |
| 2018 | 1 ppb |
How Fort Drum compares
Of the 2,077 New York systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 1.5 ppb; 17 are over 15 ppb right now and 165 have gone over at some point. Fort Drum's 0.4 ppb sits at the 20th percentile in New York and the 42nd nationally (higher means more lead).
Other water systems in Jefferson County
56 other systems share Jefferson County; 29 of them have a higher latest lead result than Fort Drum. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Watertown City | 27,861 | 6.3 ppb |
| Leray Town Wd 1, 2, 4 | 7,140 | 3.3 ppb |
| Carthage Village | 3,600 | 0 (not detected) |
| Cape Vincent Town Wd 1 & 5 | 2,600 | - |
| Sackets Harbor Village | 2,200 | 1.2 ppb |
| Clayton Village | 2,100 | 1.8 ppb |
| Adams Village | 2,000 | 4.3 ppb |
| Alexandria Bay Village | 1,900 | 2.6 ppb |
| Pamelia Town Wd 4 & 5 | 1,857 | 4.1 ppb |
| Philadelphia Village | 1,800 | 1.5 ppb |
Next steps for Fort Drum, NY
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Fort Drum, NY 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 Fort Drum 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.