Mount Olive Water Association, AR
Lead detected, under the action levels
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 2 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
Mount Olive Water Association serves about 6,308 people through 2,523 service connections, which makes it a medium-sized system under EPA's size classes. It is owned by a local government (city, town, county or district) and draws surface water, in Madison,Washington County, Arkansas. EPA system ID: AR0000668; phone on file: 479-643-2324. 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 ppb from 7 ppb in the period ending 2022. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Mount Olive Water Association is 7 ppb across 4 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 2 ppb |
| 2022 | 7 ppb |
| 2019 | 3 ppb |
| 2016 | 3 ppb |
Where this result ranks
Of the 190 Arkansas systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 1 ppb; 15 are over 15 ppb right now and 19 have gone over at some point. Mount Olive Water Association's 2 ppb sits at the 70th percentile in Arkansas and the 72nd nationally (higher means more lead).
What to do in your house
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Elkins, AR 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 Mount Olive Water Association 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.