Park Garden Estates, MT
Lead detected, under the action levels
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 1 ppb (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. 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
Park Garden Estates serves about 50 people through 16 service connections, which makes it a very small system under EPA's size classes. It is privately owned and draws groundwater, in Cascade County, Montana. EPA system ID: MT0000050; phone on file: 406-454-3635. Ask them for your address in their service line inventory - every system had to publish one by Oct 2024.
Lead results over time
Against the period ending 2018 (1 ppb) the latest result is about the same. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Park Garden Estates is 12 ppb across 3 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb (1 over 10 ppb).
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2024 | 1 ppb |
| 2018 | 1 ppb |
| 2017 | 12 ppb over 10 |
Against other Montana systems
Of the 753 Montana systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 1 ppb; 5 are over 15 ppb right now and 28 have gone over at some point. Park Garden Estates's 1 ppb sits at the 44th percentile in Montana and the 50th nationally (higher means more lead).
Nearby utilities
41 other systems share Cascade County; 8 of them have a higher latest lead result than Park Garden Estates. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Great Falls City Of | 60,000 | 12 ppb |
| Malmstrom Air Force Base | 8,850 | 0 (not detected) |
| Sun Prairie Village County | 1,800 | 1 ppb |
| Black Eagle Cascade County Water Sewer | 1,233 | 0 (not detected) |
| Prairie Water Company | 1,000 | 0 (not detected) |
| Cascade Town Of | 650 | 2 ppb |
| Belt Town Of | 600 | 0 (not detected) |
| Vaughn Cascade County Water And Sewer | 585 | 0 (not detected) |
| Two Buttes Water Users Assn | 525 | 2 ppb |
| Gore Hill County Water Dist | 500 | 1 ppb |
Next steps for Great Falls, MT
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Great Falls, MT 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 Park Garden Estates 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. Size matters more than most people expect: small vs large water systems.