Hobbs Municipal Water Supply, NM
Lead detected, under the action levels
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 0.6 ppb (monitoring period 2024-2026). 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.
Hobbs Municipal Water Supply at a glance
Hobbs Municipal Water Supply serves about 40,418 people through 14,435 service connections, which makes it a large system under EPA's size classes. It is owned by a local government (city, town, county or district) and draws groundwater, in Lea County, New Mexico. EPA system ID: NM3521613; phone on file: 575-397-9315. 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 2023 (1.1 ppb) the latest result is about the same. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Hobbs Municipal Water Supply is 1.1 ppb across 4 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2026 | 0.6 ppb |
| 2023 | 1.1 ppb |
| 2020 | 0.7 ppb |
| 2017 | 0.95 ppb |
Against other New Mexico systems
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. Hobbs Municipal Water Supply's 0.6 ppb sits at the 31st percentile in New Mexico and the 45th nationally (higher means more lead).
Other water systems in Lea County
9 other systems share Lea County; 3 of them have a higher latest lead result than Hobbs Municipal Water Supply. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Lovington Municipal Water Supply | 13,539 | 0 (not detected) |
| Jal Water Supply System | 5,500 | 0.6 ppb |
| Eunice Water Supply System | 4,487 | 0.99 ppb |
| Tatum Municipal Water System | 948 | 1.1 ppb |
| Monument Mdwca | 279 | 0 (not detected) |
| Adobe Village | 83 | 0 (not detected) |
| Mescalero Ridge Water Co-Op | 76 | 0.5 ppb |
| Monarchy Country Estates | 52 | 3.5 ppb |
| Morwest Corporation | - | - |
Next steps for Hobbs, NM
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Hobbs, 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 Hobbs Municipal Water Supply 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.