Mount Sterling, IL
Lead reported as not detected
Latest 90th-percentile lead: reported as 0 (not detected) (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. The latest 90th-percentile result was reported as 0 (not detected at the lab's limit). That says the sampled homes were low, not that your home has no lead service line. Check your utility's service line inventory for your address.
Mount Sterling at a glance
Mount Sterling serves about 3,271 people through 1,258 service connections, which makes it a small system under EPA's size classes. It is owned by a local government (city, town, county or district) and draws groundwater, in Brown County, Illinois. EPA system ID: IL0090100; phone on file: 217-773-2136. Ask them for your address in their service line inventory - every system had to publish one by Oct 2024.
Mount Sterling's lead record
That is down 6.83 ppb from 6.83 ppb in the period ending 2021. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Mount Sterling is 6.83 ppb across 3 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2024 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2021 | 6.83 ppb |
| 2018 | 0 (not detected) |
Against other Illinois systems
Of the 1,744 Illinois systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 0 ppb; 22 are over 15 ppb right now and 152 have gone over at some point. Mount Sterling's reported as 0 (not detected) sits at the 45th percentile in Illinois and the 33rd nationally (higher means more lead). Systems reporting 0 tie at the bottom, so the rank mostly reflects size among them.
Nearby utilities
4 other systems share Brown County; 1 of them has a higher latest lead result than Mount Sterling. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Western Il Correctional Center | 1,600 | - |
| Versailles | 478 | 7.77 ppb |
| Ripley | 250 | 0 (not detected) |
| Mound Station | 122 | 0 (not detected) |
Your move
Look up your address in Mount Sterling's service line inventory. If it says lead, galvanized or unknown, test your tap. If your own line is lead, replacing the private side runs about $1,200-$12,300 (EPA average about $4,700). Ask Mount Sterling 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. Why sampled homes are the worst-case ones is in the guide to reading the number. Small systems behave differently: why small systems go over more often.