Gateway, CA
Lead reported as not detected
Latest 90th-percentile lead: reported as 0 (not detected) (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 90th-percentile result was reported as 0 (not detected at the lab's limit). That says the sampled homes were low, not that your home has no lead service line. Check your utility's service line inventory for your address.
Gateway at a glance
Gateway serves about 1,215 people through 66 service connections, which makes it a small system under EPA's size classes. It is owned by a local government (city, town, county or district) and draws surface water, in Imperial County, California. EPA system ID: CA1300018; phone on file: 442-265-1854. Ask them for your address in their service line inventory - every system had to publish one by Oct 2024.
Every lead result on file
Against the period ending 2022 (0 ppb) the latest result is about the same. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Gateway is 0 ppb across 3 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2022 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2019 | 0 (not detected) |
How Gateway compares
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. Gateway's reported as 0 (not detected) sits at the 43rd percentile in California and the 28th nationally (higher means more lead). Systems reporting 0 tie at the bottom, so the rank mostly reflects size among them.
Neighbouring systems
28 other systems share Imperial County; 12 of them have a higher latest lead result than Gateway. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| El Centro, City Of | 44,124 | 0 (not detected) |
| Calexico, City Of | 40,357 | 0 (not detected) |
| Brawley, City Of | 26,862 | 0 (not detected) |
| Imperial, City Of | 22,102 | 0 (not detected) |
| Gswc - Calipatria | 7,475 | 0 (not detected) |
| Heber Public Utility District | 7,312 | 0 (not detected) |
| Holtville, City Of | 6,355 | 0.9 ppb |
| Calipatria State Prison | 4,800 | 1.6 ppb |
| Centinela State Prison | 4,100 | 1.6 ppb |
| Westmorland, City Of | 2,202 | 0 (not detected) |
Next steps for El Centro, CA
Look up your address in Gateway's service line inventory. If it says lead, galvanized or unknown, test your tap. If your own line is lead, replacing the private side runs about $1,200-$12,300 (EPA average about $4,700). Ask Gateway 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. A zero today does not rule out a jump later - the rules are tightening in 2027.