Esalen Institute Ws, CA
Exceeded the action level in the past
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 8 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. 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.
Esalen Institute Ws at a glance
Esalen Institute Ws serves about 246 people through 42 service connections, which makes it a very small system under EPA's size classes. It is privately owned and draws surface water, in Monterey County, California. EPA system ID: CA2701295; phone on file: 404-992-2577. Call that number and ask whether your address has a lead, galvanized or unknown service line.
Every lead result on file
That is down 24.9 ppb from 32.9 ppb in the period ending 2024. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Esalen Institute Ws is 32.9 ppb across 4 monitoring periods, 2 of them over the 15 ppb action level.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 8 ppb |
| 2024 | 32.9 ppb over 15 |
| 2022 | 32.9 ppb over 15 |
| 2018 | 0 (not detected) |
Where this result ranks
Of the 2,884 California systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 0 ppb; 30 are over 15 ppb right now and 215 have gone over at some point. Esalen Institute Ws's 8 ppb sits at the 96th percentile in California and the 96th nationally (higher means more lead).
Nearby utilities
155 other systems share Monterey County; 6 of them have a higher latest lead result than Esalen Institute Ws. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Cal Am Water Company - Monterey | 128,928 | 1 ppb |
| Cwsc Salinas | 114,286 | 1.2 ppb |
| Alco Water Service | 56,253 | 0 (not detected) |
| Marina Coast Water District | 38,918 | 0 (not detected) |
| Soledad, City Of | 19,732 | 0 (not detected) |
| Greenfield, City Of | 18,967 | 0 (not detected) |
| Cwsc King City | 14,046 | 0 (not detected) |
| Gonzales, City Of | 8,333 | 0 (not detected) |
| Cwsc Salinas Hills | 7,733 | 0.9 ppb |
| Castroville Community Services District | 7,515 | 0 (not detected) |
Your move
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Big Sur, CA 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 Esalen Institute Ws 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. More in what a past exceedance means today.