Vergas, MN
Exceeded the action level in the past
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 5 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. 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.
Who runs the water here
Vergas serves about 358 people through 169 service connections, which makes it a very small system under EPA's size classes. It is owned by a local government (city, town, county or district) and draws groundwater, in Otter Tail County, Minnesota. EPA system ID: MN1560029; phone on file: 2184098275. 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 up 5 ppb from 0 ppb in the period ending 2024. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Vergas is 17 ppb across 5 monitoring periods, 1 of them over the 15 ppb action level.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 5 ppb |
| 2024 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2024 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2023 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2023 | 17 ppb over 15 |
How Vergas compares
Of the 966 Minnesota systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 0 ppb; 7 are over 15 ppb right now and 48 have gone over at some point. Vergas's 5 ppb sits at the 90th percentile in Minnesota and the 91st nationally (higher means more lead).
Other water systems in Otter Tail County
15 other systems share Otter Tail County; 2 of them have a higher latest lead result than Vergas. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Fergus Falls | 14,194 | 8 ppb |
| Perham | 3,421 | 3 ppb |
| Pelican Rapids | 2,577 | 7 ppb |
| New York Mills | 1,287 | 0 (not detected) |
| Parkers Prairie | 1,023 | 0 (not detected) |
| Battle Lake | 918 | 2 ppb |
| Henning | 851 | 0 (not detected) |
| Ottertail | 694 | 0 (not detected) |
| Underwood | 380 | 0 (not detected) |
| Deer Creek | 329 | 0 (not detected) |
What to do in your house
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Vergas, MN 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 Vergas 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. More in what a past exceedance means today.