Lightning W, NV
Lead detected, under the action levels
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 1.1 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.
Lightning W at a glance
Lightning W serves about 163 people through 79 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 Washoe County, Nevada. EPA system ID: NV0000865; phone on file: 775-834-8214. They can tell you what your service line is made of and whether they pay to replace it.
Lightning W's lead record
That is up 1.1 ppb from 0 ppb in the period ending 2022. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Lightning W is 2 ppb across 4 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 1.1 ppb |
| 2022 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2019 | 0 (not detected) |
| 2016 | 2 ppb |
Where this result ranks
Of the 204 Nevada systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 1 ppb; 0 are over 15 ppb right now and 13 have gone over at some point. Lightning W's 1.1 ppb sits at the 54th percentile in Nevada and the 57th nationally (higher means more lead).
Nearby utilities
21 other systems share Washoe County; 6 of them have a higher latest lead result than Lightning W. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Truckee Meadows Water Authority | 442,000 | 0 (not detected) |
| Sun Valley Gid | 17,000 | 2 ppb |
| Great Basin Water Co Cold Springs | 9,910 | 0 (not detected) |
| Incline Village Gid | 9,313 | 1.4 ppb |
| Great Basin Water Co Spanish Springs | 1,450 | 0 (not detected) |
| Steamboat Springs Waterworks Inc | 998 | 0 (not detected) |
| Verdi Meadows Utility Company Inc | 510 | 0 (not detected) |
| Empire Mining Company | 350 | 0 (not detected) |
| Grandview Terrace Water District | 328 | 1 ppb |
| Gerlach Gid | 180 | 2 ppb |
What to do in your house
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Reno, NV 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 Lightning W 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.