Payson, IL
Lead reported as not detected
Latest 90th-percentile lead: reported as 0 (not detected) (monitoring period 2025-2025). 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.
About Payson
Payson serves about 1,386 people through 394 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 Adams County, Illinois. EPA system ID: IL0010550. Ask the utility on your bill for your address in their service line inventory.
Every lead result on file
That is down 1.7 ppb from 1.7 ppb in the period ending 2025. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Payson is 3.3 ppb across 5 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2025 | 1.7 ppb |
| 2024 | 3.3 ppb |
| 2021 | 2.6 ppb |
| 2018 | 3.2 ppb |
How Payson compares
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. Payson's reported as 0 (not detected) sits at the 36th percentile in Illinois and the 29th nationally (higher means more lead). Systems reporting 0 tie at the bottom, so the rank mostly reflects size among them.
Neighbouring systems
19 other systems share Adams County; 6 of them have a higher latest lead result than Payson. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Quincy | 42,000 | 0.55 ppb |
| Abs Water Coop | 7,095 | 0 (not detected) |
| Mill Creek Pwd | 5,755 | 1.8 ppb |
| Clayton-Camp Point Water Commission | 2,470 | 0 (not detected) |
| Camp Point | 1,190 | 0 (not detected) |
| Mendon | 953 | 0 (not detected) |
| Adams County Water District No 1 | 800 | 0 (not detected) |
| Clayton | 709 | 0 (not detected) |
| Ursa | 626 | 0 (not detected) |
| Golden | 620 | 0 (not detected) |
Your move
Look up your address in Payson'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 Payson 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. Small systems behave differently: why small systems go over more often.