Portage Township, MI
Lead detected, under the action levels
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 2.1 ppb (monitoring period 2023-2023). 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
Portage Township serves about 1,214 people through 528 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 Houghton County, Michigan. EPA system ID: MI0003330; phone on file: 906-482-4310. 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 up 1.63 ppb from 0.47 ppb in the period ending 2023. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Portage Township is 2.6 ppb across 12 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2023 | 2.1 ppb |
| 2023 | 0.47 ppb |
| 2022 | 1.4 ppb |
| 2022 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2021 | 0.98 ppb |
| 2021 | 2.4 ppb |
| 2020 | 0.9 ppb |
| 2020 | 2.6 ppb |
| 2020 | 1 ppb |
| 2020 | 1.6 ppb |
| 2019 | 1.6 ppb |
| 2019 | 2 ppb |
How Portage Township compares
Of the 1,227 Michigan systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 1 ppb; 31 are over 15 ppb right now and 109 have gone over at some point. Portage Township's 2.1 ppb sits at the 69th percentile in Michigan and the 74th nationally (higher means more lead).
Other water systems in Houghton County
16 other systems share Houghton County; 3 of them have a higher latest lead result than Portage Township. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Houghton | 8,386 | 5.5 ppb |
| Upper Michigan Water Company | 5,535 | 1.6 ppb |
| Hancock | 4,500 | 1.1 ppb |
| Adams Township | 2,010 | - |
| Laurium | 1,947 | 0 (not detected) |
| Osceola Township | 1,391 | 3.6 ppb |
| Lake Linden | 1,203 | 1.3 ppb |
| Torch Lake Township | 946 | 0.66 ppb |
| Chassell Township | 800 | 1.3 ppb |
| South Range | 745 | 0.94 ppb |
Next steps for Houghton, MI
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Houghton, MI 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 Portage Township 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. The action level is dropping - the 10 ppb rule from 2027.