Northbrook Village I / Berlin Ret., MA
Lead detected, under the action levels
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 0.6 ppb (monitoring period 2025-2027). 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.
Northbrook Village I / Berlin Ret. at a glance
Northbrook Village I / Berlin Ret. serves about 48 people through 13 service connections, which makes it a very small system under EPA's size classes. It is privately owned and draws groundwater, in Worcester County, Massachusetts. EPA system ID: MA2028007; phone on file: 6034733403. Ask them for your address in their service line inventory - every system had to publish one by Oct 2024.
Every lead result on file
That is down 4.4 ppb from 5 ppb in the period ending 2024. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Northbrook Village I / Berlin Ret. is 5 ppb across 4 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2027 | 0.6 ppb |
| 2024 | 5 ppb |
| 2021 | 3 ppb |
| 2018 | 3.5 ppb |
How Northbrook Village I / Berlin Ret. compares
Of the 535 Massachusetts systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 1.7 ppb; 13 are over 15 ppb right now and 66 have gone over at some point. Northbrook Village I / Berlin Ret.'s 0.6 ppb sits at the 27th percentile in Massachusetts and the 44th nationally (higher means more lead).
Neighbouring systems
107 other systems share Worcester County; 71 of them have a higher latest lead result than Northbrook Village I / Berlin Ret.. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Worcester Dpwp, Water Supply Division | 206,518 | 2 ppb |
| Fitchburg Dpw Division Of Water Supply | 41,946 | 5 ppb |
| Leominster Water Division | 41,683 | 2.8 ppb |
| Shrewsbury Water Department | 38,325 | 0 (not detected) |
| Milford Water Department | 30,379 | 1 ppb |
| Westborough Water Department | 21,567 | 1.8 ppb |
| Gardner Water Department | 21,381 | 8 ppb |
| Southbridge Water Department | 19,562 | 3 ppb |
| Holden Water Division, Dpw | 18,016 | 3.1 ppb |
| Webster Water Department | 17,776 | 3.7 ppb |
Next steps for Berlin, MA
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Berlin, MA 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 Northbrook Village I / Berlin Ret. 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. The action level is dropping - the 10 ppb rule from 2027.