Ski Country, NC
Lead reported as not detected
Latest 90th-percentile lead: reported as 0 (not detected) (monitoring period 2023-2025). 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 Ski Country
Ski Country serves about 150 people through 78 service connections, which makes it a very small system under EPA's size classes. It is privately owned and draws groundwater, in Avery County, North Carolina. EPA system ID: NC0106119; phone on file: 800-525-7990. Ask them for your address in their service line inventory - every system had to publish one by Oct 2024.
Lead results over time
That is down 8 ppb from 8 ppb in the period ending 2022. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Ski Country is 8 ppb across 3 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2022 | 8 ppb |
| 2016 | 0 (not detected) |
Against other North Carolina systems
Of the 1,925 North Carolina systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 0 ppb; 5 are over 15 ppb right now and 75 have gone over at some point. Ski Country's reported as 0 (not detected) sits at the 31st percentile in North Carolina and the 13th nationally (higher means more lead). Systems reporting 0 tie at the bottom, so the rank mostly reflects size among them.
Other water systems in Avery County
17 other systems share Avery County; 2 of them have a higher latest lead result than Ski Country. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Sugar Mountain Utility | 3,226 | 0 (not detected) |
| Linville Land Harbor | 2,280 | 4 ppb |
| Banner Elk, Town Of | 1,164 | 0 (not detected) |
| Newland, Town Of | 999 | 0 (not detected) |
| Elk River Club Development | 732 | 0 (not detected) |
| Linville Ridge | 710 | 0 (not detected) |
| Linville Resorts Inc | 499 | 0 (not detected) |
| Elk Park, Town Of | 495 | 0 (not detected) |
| Blue Ridge Village | 343 | 0 (not detected) |
| Charles A Cannon Memorial Hospital | 320 | 0 (not detected) |
What to do in your house
Look up your address in Ski Country'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 Ski Country 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.