Rio Embudo Mdwca, NM
Lead detected, under the action levels
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 3.7 ppb (monitoring period 2017-2019). 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.
Who runs the water here
Rio Embudo Mdwca serves about 159 people through 63 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 Rio Arriba County, New Mexico. EPA system ID: NM3500721; phone on file: 505-927-2974. Ask them for your address in their service line inventory - every system had to publish one by Oct 2024.
Every lead result on file
The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Rio Embudo Mdwca is 3.7 ppb across 1 monitoring period, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2019 | 3.7 ppb |
How Rio Embudo Mdwca compares
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. Rio Embudo Mdwca's 3.7 ppb sits at the 80th percentile in New Mexico and the 86th nationally (higher means more lead).
Other water systems in Rio Arriba County
40 other systems share Rio Arriba County; 8 of them have a higher latest lead result than Rio Embudo Mdwca. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Espanola Water System | 12,012 | 0 (not detected) |
| Chama Water System | 1,573 | 9.1 ppb |
| Agua Sana Wua | 1,514 | 0 (not detected) |
| El Rito Regional Water & Waste Water Asn | 1,200 | 4.1 ppb |
| Greater Chimayo Mdwca | 1,050 | 2.3 ppb |
| Alcalde Mdwca | 927 | 0.56 ppb |
| Chamita Mdwca | 902 | 0 (not detected) |
| Truchas Mdwca | 629 | 3.1 ppb |
| Velarde Mdwca | 543 | 4.1 ppb |
| Dixon Mdwca | 500 | 1.5 ppb |
Next steps for Dixon, NM
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Dixon, 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 Rio Embudo Mdwca 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. Size matters more than most people expect: small vs large water systems.