Spring Canyon Ranch, NM
Lead detected, under the action levels
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 2.5 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 Spring Canyon Ranch
Spring Canyon Ranch serves about 116 people through 54 service connections, which makes it a very small system under EPA's size classes. It is privately owned and draws groundwater, in Catron County, New Mexico. EPA system ID: NM3500902; phone on file: 850-221-2722. 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 2022 (2.2 ppb) the latest result is about the same. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Spring Canyon Ranch is 3.1 ppb across 4 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 2.5 ppb |
| 2022 | 2.2 ppb |
| 2019 | 3.1 ppb |
| 2018 | 0.47 ppb |
How Spring Canyon Ranch 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. Spring Canyon Ranch's 2.5 ppb sits at the 70th percentile in New Mexico and the 77th nationally (higher means more lead).
Neighbouring systems
8 other systems share Catron County; 2 of them have a higher latest lead result than Spring Canyon Ranch. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Reserve Water Works | 601 | 9 ppb |
| Quemado Lake Water Association | 344 | 1.9 ppb |
| Quemado Mutual Water & Swa | 286 | 0 (not detected) |
| Homestead Landowners Association | 170 | 1.3 ppb |
| Rancho Grande Water Association Inc | 166 | 0 (not detected) |
| Coyote Creek Mutual Domestic Wua | 133 | - |
| Pie Town Mdwca | 107 | - |
| Aragon Mdwca | 47 | 26 ppb |
What to do in your house
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Quemado, 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 Spring Canyon Ranch 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.