Somerville Water Dept. (Mwra), MA
Exceeded the action level in the past
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 6.62 ppb (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 result is under the action level, but this system has gone over 15 ppb before. Lead comes from pipes, not the source water, so a home with a lead service line can still be exposed. Test your own tap.
About Somerville Water Dept. (Mwra)
Somerville Water Dept. (Mwra) serves about 81,045 people through 14,919 service connections, which makes it a large system under EPA's size classes. It is owned by a local government (city, town, county or district) and draws surface water, in Middlesex County, Massachusetts. EPA system ID: MA3274000; phone on file: 6176256600. Ask them for your address in their service line inventory - every system had to publish one by Oct 2024.
Every lead result on file
Against the period ending 2024 (6.44 ppb) the latest result is about the same. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Somerville Water Dept. (Mwra) is 21.2 ppb across 11 monitoring periods, 1 of them over the 15 ppb action level.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 6.62 ppb |
| 2024 | 6.44 ppb |
| 2023 | 3.92 ppb |
| 2023 | 12 ppb over 10 |
| 2022 | 14.9 ppb over 10 |
| 2022 | 6.6 ppb |
| 2020 | 21.2 ppb over 15 |
| 2020 | 8.87 ppb |
| 2019 | 7.53 ppb |
| 2017 | 12.9 ppb over 10 |
| 2016 | 9.48 ppb |
How Somerville Water Dept. (Mwra) compares
Of the 535 Massachusetts systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 1.7 ppb; 13 are over 15 ppb right now and 66 have gone over at some point. Somerville Water Dept. (Mwra)'s 6.62 ppb sits at the 90th percentile in Massachusetts and the 94th nationally (higher means more lead).
Neighbouring systems
94 other systems share Middlesex County; 7 of them have a higher latest lead result than Somerville Water Dept. (Mwra). If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Lowell Regional Water Utility | 120,418 | 0 (not detected) |
| Cambridge Water Department | 118,214 | 8 ppb |
| Newton Water Dept. (Mwra) | 88,931 | 1.09 ppb |
| Framingham Water Dept. (Mwra) | 72,362 | 1.74 ppb |
| Malden Water Division (Mwra) | 66,263 | 9.74 ppb |
| Waltham Water Department | 65,218 | 2.24 ppb |
| Medford Water Dept. (Mwra) | 61,700 | 8.31 ppb |
| Everett Water Dept. (Mwra) | 49,075 | 1.25 ppb |
| Arlington Water Dept. (Mwra) | 46,308 | 2.68 ppb |
| Billerica Water Works | 42,119 | 2.4 ppb |
Your move
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Somerville, MA 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 Somerville Water Dept. (Mwra) 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. The lead result guide covers how utilities pick the homes they sample. Why an old exceedance still matters: over the limit before, under it now.