Purgatory Md, CO
Lead detected, under the action levels
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 2 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 Purgatory Md
Purgatory Md serves about 1,364 people through 220 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 groundwater, in La Plata County, Colorado. EPA system ID: CO0134750; phone on file: 970-799-6383. Ask them for your address in their service line inventory - every system had to publish one by Oct 2024.
Purgatory Md's lead record
Against the period ending 2022 (2.7 ppb) the latest result is about the same. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Purgatory Md is 7.9 ppb across 8 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 2 ppb |
| 2022 | 2.7 ppb |
| 2021 | 7.3 ppb |
| 2020 | 7.9 ppb |
| 2019 | 7 ppb |
| 2019 | 7.7 ppb |
| 2018 | 1.9 ppb |
| 2017 | 4 ppb |
How Purgatory Md compares
Of the 1,025 Colorado systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 1 ppb; 2 are over 15 ppb right now and 71 have gone over at some point. Purgatory Md's 2 ppb sits at the 73rd percentile in Colorado and the 72nd nationally (higher means more lead).
Nearby utilities
52 other systems share La Plata County; 12 of them have a higher latest lead result than Purgatory Md. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Durango City Of | 33,787 | 3.1 ppb |
| Animas Wc | 3,096 | 8.8 ppb |
| Bayfield Town Of | 2,300 | 2.7 ppb |
| Forest Lakes Md | 1,699 | 1.7 ppb |
| Lake Durango Wa | 1,577 | 0.7 ppb |
| Edgemont Ranch Md | 1,200 | 1.5 ppb |
| Durango West Md No 2 | 930 | 2 ppb |
| Ignacio Town Of | 800 | 0.8 ppb |
| Durango West Md No 1 | 750 | 1 ppb |
| Elbert Creek Water Co | 750 | 0 (not detected) |
Your move
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Durango, CO 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 Purgatory Md 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. The action level is dropping - the 10 ppb rule from 2027.