Pan Am Southern Railroad, MA
Exceeded the action level in the past
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 2.5 ppb (monitoring period 2024-2024). The federal action level is 15 ppb today and drops to 10 ppb in Nov 2027; EPA's health goal is 0. The latest 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.
Who runs the water here
Pan Am Southern Railroad serves about 120 people through 10 service connections, which makes it a very small system under EPA's size classes. It is privately owned and draws surface water, in Franklin County, Massachusetts. EPA system ID: MA1074007; phone on file: 5854904951. They can tell you what your service line is made of and whether they pay to replace it.
Lead results over time
That is down 9.6 ppb from 12.1 ppb in the period ending 2024. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Pan Am Southern Railroad is 133 ppb across 17 monitoring periods, 3 of them over the 15 ppb action level.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2024 | 2.5 ppb |
| 2024 | 12.1 ppb over 10 |
| 2024 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2024 | 3.7 ppb |
| 2023 | 3.8 ppb |
| 2022 | 1.1 ppb |
| 2022 | 2.1 ppb |
| 2022 | 9.35 ppb |
| 2021 | 133 ppb over 15 |
| 2020 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2019 | 1.1 ppb |
| 2018 | 21.7 ppb over 15 |
| 2018 | 2.3 ppb |
| 2017 | 2.1 ppb |
| 2016 | 5.4 ppb |
| 2016 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2016 | 32.9 ppb over 15 |
Where this result ranks
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. Pan Am Southern Railroad's 2.5 ppb sits at the 63rd percentile in Massachusetts and the 77th nationally (higher means more lead).
Nearby utilities
24 other systems share Franklin County; 16 of them have a higher latest lead result than Pan Am Southern Railroad. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Greenfield Water Department | 17,768 | 3.32 ppb |
| Turners Falls Water Dept | 8,080 | 1.9 ppb |
| Orange Water Dept | 6,526 | 2.6 ppb |
| South Deerfield Water Supply District | 3,800 | 3 ppb |
| Sunderland Water District | 3,190 | 3.9 ppb |
| Shelburne Falls Fire District | 1,806 | 2.8 ppb |
| Bernardston Fire Water Dist | 1,471 | 1.3 ppb |
| Deerfield Fire District | 1,300 | 1.4 ppb |
| Whately Water Department | 900 | 1.5 ppb |
| Northfield Water District | 800 | 0 (not detected) |
Your move
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; East Deerfield, 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 Pan Am Southern Railroad whether it covers that cost before hiring anyone - many utilities now do. Its latest copper 90th percentile is 1800 ppb (copper action level 1,300 ppb).
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.