West Paonia Domestic Water Company, CO
Lead detected, under the action levels
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 0.7 ppb (monitoring period 2025-2025). 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 West Paonia Domestic Water Company
West Paonia Domestic Water Company serves about 57 people through 24 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 surface water, in Delta County, Colorado. EPA system ID: CO0115838; phone on file: 970-618-8273. Ask them for your address in their service line inventory - every system had to publish one by Oct 2024.
Lead results over time
Against the period ending 2024 (1.1 ppb) the latest result is about the same. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for West Paonia Domestic Water Company is 1.5 ppb across 6 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 0.7 ppb |
| 2024 | 1.1 ppb |
| 2023 | 0.5 ppb |
| 2022 | 1.5 ppb |
| 2021 | 0.5 ppb |
| 2020 | 0 (not detected) |
Where this result ranks
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. West Paonia Domestic Water Company's 0.7 ppb sits at the 44th percentile in Colorado and the 46th nationally (higher means more lead).
Other water systems in Delta County
29 other systems share Delta County; 15 of them have a higher latest lead result than West Paonia Domestic Water Company. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Delta City Of | 8,700 | - |
| Orchard City Town Of | 3,100 | 7 ppb |
| Upper Surface Creek Domestic Wua | 2,800 | 3 ppb |
| Paonia Town Of | 2,499 | 1.2 ppb |
| Cedaredge Town Of | 2,400 | 2 ppb |
| Hotchkiss Town Of | 2,050 | 0.8 ppb |
| Rogers Mesa Wc | 840 | 0 (not detected) |
| Crawford Mesa Wa | 486 | 8.4 ppb |
| Crawford Town Of | 477 | 1 ppb |
| Bone Mesa Domestic Wd | 400 | 0 (not detected) |
Your move
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Paonia, 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 West Paonia Domestic 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. 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.