Shelby City Of, MT
Lead detected, under the action levels
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 2 ppb (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. 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
Shelby City Of serves about 3,970 people through 1,244 service connections, which makes it a medium-sized system under EPA's size classes. It is owned by a local government (city, town, county or district) and draws groundwater, in Toole County, Montana. EPA system ID: MT0000328; phone on file: 406-434-5222. Ask them for your address in their service line inventory - every system had to publish one by Oct 2024.
Shelby City Of's lead record
Against the period ending 2025 (2 ppb) the latest result is about the same. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Shelby City Of is 5 ppb across 6 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 2 ppb |
| 2025 | 2 ppb |
| 2023 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2020 | 3 ppb |
| 2019 | 5 ppb |
| 2017 | 2 ppb |
Where this result ranks
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. Shelby City Of's 2 ppb sits at the 76th percentile in Montana and the 72nd nationally (higher means more lead).
Neighbouring systems
14 other systems share Toole County; 2 of them have a higher latest lead result than Shelby City Of. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Sunburst Town Of | 459 | 1 ppb |
| Oilmont County Water District | 300 | 0 (not detected) |
| Ncmrwa North Shelby | 300 | 0 (not detected) |
| Kevin Town Of | 290 | 12 ppb |
| Galata County Water District | 200 | 0 (not detected) |
| Rimrock Colony | 124 | 0 (not detected) |
| Sweetgrass Water Users Assn | 100 | 15 ppb |
| Hillside Colony Inc | 100 | 0 (not detected) |
| Camrose Colony | 95 | 0 (not detected) |
| Nine Mile Co Water And Sewer District | 90 | 1 ppb |
What to do in your house
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Shelby, 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 Shelby City Of 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.