Buena Vista Mdwc & Swa, NM
Lead detected, under the action levels
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 0.4 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. Lead was measured in sampled homes but the 90th percentile is under both action levels. EPA's health goal for lead is zero, so test your own tap if your home was built before 1986 or anyone in it is pregnant or a young child.
About Buena Vista Mdwc & Swa
Buena Vista Mdwc & Swa serves about 225 people through 74 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 Mora County, New Mexico. EPA system ID: NM3515418; phone on file: 619-335-7965. They can tell you what your service line is made of and whether they pay to replace it.
Buena Vista Mdwc & Swa's lead record
The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Buena Vista Mdwc & Swa is 0.4 ppb across 1 monitoring period, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 0.4 ppb |
How Buena Vista Mdwc & Swa compares
Of the 504 New Mexico systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 1.4 ppb; 14 are over 15 ppb right now and 46 have gone over at some point. Buena Vista Mdwc & Swa's 0.4 ppb sits at the 26th percentile in New Mexico and the 42nd nationally (higher means more lead).
Neighbouring systems
14 other systems share Mora County; 10 of them have a higher latest lead result than Buena Vista Mdwc & Swa. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Mora Mdwca & Swa | 1,100 | 6 ppb |
| Wagon Mound Water System | 402 | - |
| Agua Pura Mdwca | 357 | 2.4 ppb |
| Upper Holman Mdwca | 325 | 2 ppb |
| Cleveland Mdwca | 270 | 3 ppb |
| San Antonio De Cleveland Mdwca | 269 | 1.9 ppb |
| Agua Negra Mdwca | 242 | 0 (not detected) |
| Rainsville Water & Sanitation District | 177 | 1.3 ppb |
| Watrous Mdwca | 135 | 0 (not detected) |
| Ledoux Mdwca | 117 | 2.5 ppb |
What to do in your house
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Buena Vista, NM 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 Buena Vista Mdwc & Swa 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. Systems that went over once often dip back under; here is what that means.