Sampling shows elevated lead levels in one of the residents.

Clarks Branch Water Association found elevated levels of lead in drinking water in one home during recent testing.

Download a copy of the complete Lead Exceedance Public Notice For Clarks Branch Water System.

Clarks Branch Water Association may also have tested your home. If they did, you should receive or may have already received these results. These results are specific to your home and may be different from the results taken in other locations. Lead can cause serious health problems, especially for pregnant women and young children. Please read this information closely to see what you can do to reduce lead in your drinking water.

What is an Action Level?

The lead action level is a measure of the effectiveness of the corrosion control treatment in water systems. The action level is not a standard for establishing a safe level of lead in a home. To check if corrosion control is working, EPA requires water systems to test for lead at the tap in certain homes, including those with lead service lines.

Systems compare sample results from homes to EPA’s action level of 0.015 mg/L (15 ppb). If 10 percent of the samples from these homes have water concentrations that are greater than the action level, then the system must perform actions such as public education, adjusting treatment, and lead service line replacement.

What Happened?

In July 2025, we collected 5 samples and analyzed them for lead. Four of the 5 samples were below the action level, but one residence came back at elevated levels for lead of 0.044 mg/l. This spiked the average of the samples to 0.025 mg/l, above the 0.015mg/l Action level.

In speaking with the homeowner, the sample line was stagnant for a week or so prior to the sample and the homes plumbing is over 25 years old. We believe these factors contributed to elevated levels, but they do not invalidate the sample results.

Clarks Branch Water Association is focused on protecting the health of every household in our community; however, lead from service lines and lead plumbing and fixtures can dissolve or break off into water and end up at the faucet. The portion of the water system owned by the water association has no known sources of lead.

We found that customers owned sides of service lines and lead in plumbing in homes are potential sources of lead in your drinking water. This does not mean that every property that receives drinking water from Clarks Branch Water Association has lead in the drinking water. It does mean that you should understand how to reduce your exposure to lead through water. Keep in mind that drinking water is not the only potential source of lead exposure, since lead can be found in air, soil, and paint. For more information on all sources of lead, visit https://www.epa.gov/lead.

What is Being Done?

The actions that we are taking are following Oregon Health Authority listed below.

In addition to the information mentioned above that we will provide to residents at locations we sampled, we
will also be following up with additional public education to all our customers by 8-15-2025.

We are working to determine which corrosion control treatment strategy would be most effective in addressing this situation. We will be taking additional tests to determine if any further action is necessary.
We also plan to take the following steps:

• We are conducting additional lead and/or water quality monitoring of our water system supply.
• We are increasing our lead monitoring to determine the extent of the situation.

For more information, please contact John Woody (541-643-6137) or (john@oecadmin.com).

General guidelines on ways to lessen the risk from lead in drinking water are available from EPA’s website.
.
Please share this information with all the other people who drink this water, especially those who may not have received this notice directly (for example, people in apartments, nursing homes, schools, and businesses). You can do this by posting this notice in a public place or distributing copies by hand or mail.

This notice is being sent to you by Clarks Branch Water Association . State Public Water System (PWS) ID#:41-00548.

Date distributed: July 31st, 2025.