Tea

Water Quality Snapshot: Tea

Tea is a local-owned community water system that delivers drinking water to 7,381 residents in Tea, South Dakota (Lincoln County) through 1,944 service connections. Its water is drawn from groundwater sources. EPA's Safe Drinking Water Information System records 24 total violations for this system , of which 3 (13%) are health-based, meaning a contaminant exceeded an EPA Maximum Contaminant Level or a required treatment technique failed. A further 14 monitoring and reporting violations are on file. The most recent violation on record dates to 2020.

The most frequently cited contaminant at this system is Lead and Copper Rule, recorded in 4 violations (MR). This system was sampled under EPA's UCMR5 PFAS monitoring program and no PFAS compounds were detected above the minimum reporting level.

Across South Dakota, EPA tracks 654 public water systems serving 915,901 people, with 56,254 cumulative violations and 8,399 health-based violations on record. About 92% of systems in the state carry at least one violation, and state-wide the average per system is 86 violations. Statewide, 42 of 49 UCMR5-tested systems have reported PFAS detections (85.7%).

Tea's 24 violations sit below the South Dakota average.

All figures above are sourced directly from EPA SDWIS and UCMR5 public data releases and are updated as EPA publishes new reporting cycles.