Island Falls Water Dept, ME
Exceeded the action level in the past
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 2.7 ppb (monitoring period 2025-2025). 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.
About Island Falls Water Dept
Island Falls Water Dept serves about 475 people through 190 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 Aroostook County, Maine. EPA system ID: ME0090720; phone on file: 207-463-2246. Ask them for your address in their service line inventory - every system had to publish one by Oct 2024.
Island Falls Water Dept's lead record
Against the period ending 2025 (1.9 ppb) the latest result is about the same. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Island Falls Water Dept is 16 ppb across 7 monitoring periods, 1 of them over the 15 ppb action level.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 2.7 ppb |
| 2025 | 1.9 ppb |
| 2024 | 16 ppb over 15 |
| 2021 | 8.4 ppb |
| 2018 | 10 ppb |
| 2018 | 10 ppb |
| 2016 | 6.8 ppb |
Where this result ranks
Of the 358 Maine systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 1.5 ppb; 2 are over 15 ppb right now and 40 have gone over at some point. Island Falls Water Dept's 2.7 ppb sits at the 71st percentile in Maine and the 79th nationally (higher means more lead).
Neighbouring systems
37 other systems share Aroostook County; 11 of them have a higher latest lead result than Island Falls Water Dept. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Presque Isle Utilities District | 6,128 | 1.5 ppb |
| Houlton Water Company | 4,735 | 3.4 ppb |
| Caribou Utilities District | 3,943 | 0 (not detected) |
| Madawaska Water District | 2,738 | 0 (not detected) |
| Van Buren Water District | 2,190 | 2.7 ppb |
| Fort Fairfield Utilities District | 2,025 | 1.8 ppb |
| Fort Kent W & W Department | 1,578 | 1.9 ppb |
| Mars Hill And Blaine Water Company | 1,500 | 3.4 ppb |
| Limestone Water & Sewer District | 875 | 2.6 ppb |
| Ashland Water & Sewer District | 713 | 2.3 ppb |
Your move
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Island Falls, ME 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 Island Falls 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. Why an old exceedance still matters: over the limit before, under it now.