Wood Lake, MN
Exceeded the action level in the past
Latest 90th-percentile lead: reported as 0 (not detected) (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
Wood Lake serves about 423 people through 194 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 Yellow Medicine County, Minnesota. EPA system ID: MN1870008; phone on file: 5074853476. Ask them for your address in their service line inventory - every system had to publish one by Oct 2024.
Wood Lake's lead record
That is down 2 ppb from 2 ppb in the period ending 2023. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Wood Lake is 20 ppb across 8 monitoring periods, 1 of them over the 15 ppb action level.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2023 | 2 ppb |
| 2022 | 1 ppb |
| 2021 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2019 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2019 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2018 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2017 | 20 ppb over 15 |
Where this result ranks
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. Wood Lake's reported as 0 (not detected) sits at the 27th percentile in Minnesota and the 21st nationally (higher means more lead). Systems reporting 0 tie at the bottom, so the rank mostly reflects size among them.
Neighbouring systems
8 other systems share Yellow Medicine County; 4 of them have a higher latest lead result than Wood Lake. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Granite Falls | 2,843 | 10 ppb |
| Canby | 1,769 | 2 ppb |
| Clarkfield | 841 | 3 ppb |
| Hanley Falls | 275 | 1 ppb |
| Echo | 269 | 0 (not detected) |
| Porter | 180 | 0 (not detected) |
| Saint Leo | 97 | 0 (not detected) |
| Hazel Run | 61 | 0 (not detected) |
Next steps for Wood Lake, MN
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Wood Lake, 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 Wood Lake 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. Why sampled homes are the worst-case ones is in the guide to reading the number. Why an old exceedance still matters: over the limit before, under it now.