Ray Water Company, CA
Lead detected, under the action levels
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 10 ppb (monitoring period 2025-2027). 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 Ray Water Company
Ray Water Company serves about 40 people through 13 service connections, which makes it a very small system under EPA's size classes. It is privately owned and draws groundwater, in Santa Barbara County, California. EPA system ID: CA4200867; phone on file: 805-680-7841. Ask them for your address in their service line inventory - every system had to publish one by Oct 2024.
Every lead result on file
That is up 8.4 ppb from 1.6 ppb in the period ending 2022. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Ray Water Company is 10 ppb across 3 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2027 | 10 ppb |
| 2022 | 1.6 ppb |
| 2020 | 0 (not detected) |
How Ray Water Company 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. Ray Water Company's 10 ppb sits at the 97th percentile in California and the 97th nationally (higher means more lead).
Neighbouring systems
62 other systems share Santa Barbara County; 3 of them have a higher latest lead result than Ray Water Company. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| City Of Santa Maria Utilities Department | 112,208 | 0 (not detected) |
| City Of Santa Barbara Water Department | 93,334 | 2.5 ppb |
| Goleta Water District | 85,535 | 0 (not detected) |
| Lompoc-City Water Utility Div | 40,538 | 0 (not detected) |
| Golden State Water Company - Orcutt | 34,267 | 2.6 ppb |
| Carpinteria Valley Water District | 16,356 | 0 (not detected) |
| American Water O&M, Llc - Vsfb | 14,971 | 0 (not detected) |
| Montecito Water Dist | 12,010 | 0 (not detected) |
| Guadalupe Water Department | 8,897 | 0 (not detected) |
| Vandenberg Village Comm. Serv. Dist. | 7,308 | 0 (not detected) |
What to do in your house
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Santa Maria, 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 Ray Water Company 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. The action level is dropping - the 10 ppb rule from 2027.