Hickory Acres, IA
Lead detected, under the action levels
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 4.8 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
Hickory Acres serves about 115 people through 46 service connections, which makes it a very small system under EPA's size classes. It is privately owned and draws groundwater, in Dubuque County, Iowa. EPA system ID: IA3126304; phone on file: 319-830-5215. 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 5.2 ppb from 10 ppb in the period ending 2022. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Hickory Acres is 10 ppb across 4 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 4.8 ppb |
| 2022 | 10 ppb |
| 2019 | 3.4 ppb |
| 2016 | 3.4 ppb |
Against other Iowa systems
Of the 1,066 Iowa systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 1.4 ppb; 4 are over 15 ppb right now and 36 have gone over at some point. Hickory Acres's 4.8 ppb sits at the 87th percentile in Iowa and the 90th nationally (higher means more lead).
Other water systems in Dubuque County
29 other systems share Dubuque County; 4 of them have a higher latest lead result than Hickory Acres. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Dubuque Water Works | 59,667 | 5 ppb |
| Asbury Municipal Water System | 5,943 | 0 (not detected) |
| Dyersville Municipal Water Co | 4,477 | 1.7 ppb |
| Cascade Municipal Water Supply | 2,386 | 0 (not detected) |
| Peosta Water Supply | 2,278 | 0.5 ppb |
| Epworth Water Supply | 2,023 | 5.75 ppb |
| Farley Water Supply | 1,766 | 1.3 ppb |
| Alpine Park | 932 | 4.6 ppb |
| Table Mound Park | 455 | 0 (not detected) |
| New Vienna Water Supply | 382 | 0 (not detected) |
Your move
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Marshalltown, IA 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 Hickory Acres 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. Systems that went over once often dip back under; here is what that means.