Inspectors with Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority doe a meter inspection. While New Mexico’s share of lead pipes in public water systems is estimated to be low, about one-third of water systems failed to turn in surveys of the issue for an October 2024 deadline. (Courtesy of ABCWUA)
Just over one-third of water systems failed to submit surveys to the State of New Mexico regarding the status of lead pipes in their water systems, despite a federal October 2024 deadline.
In 2023, the federal government tightened the limits on lead in drinking water and passed a new rule mandating that states replace all lead service lines in drinking water systems within a decade. The rule is fully in effect in 2027, at which point states will be required to submit replacement plans to address all lead pipes by 2037.
The rule required cities and smaller water systems to start inventories of their water lines, and to submit them to state regulators by October 2024. The state currently does not have enforcement power, which lies with the federal government. Between April and June, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which is in charge of the rule, issued warning letters to the water systems.
The letters contained boilerplate notice of the failure to comply with the rule and requested water systems contact the EPA for further assistance.
Further enforcement may come down the line from federal officials, according to Muna Habib, a spokesperson at the New Mexico Environment Department, in the form of administrative orders, which will not include fines, but are more “like formal instructions to take corrective action,” she said in an email.
A 2023 EPA report estimated New Mexico has about 15,400 lead service lines — less than 1% of the state’s pipes — projecting the replacement costs to be about $1.6 billion.
So far, of the 462 water systems that submitted surveys, none reported any lead pipes to the New Mexican Environment Department, officials said.
But there’s a catch, said Martin Torrez, who directs the Public Water Supervision System at NMED: The survey allowed water systems to identify all of their pipes as made from “unknown” materials.
“Now [the systems] have to do their due diligence to investigate and to identify that material by 2027,” Torrez said. “So I would say we’re still in that phase; the majority of the water systems in New Mexico have identified their lines as unknowns.”
About 37% of the lines in New Mexico’s surveys were confirmed not to have lead, according to the surveys.
Lead and copper were common materials in household plumbing, but corrosion of the pipes or joinings could expose people to lead in their water— which is unsafe in any amount, especially for children, pregnant people, and the elderly.
The federal government banned the use of lead for plumbing in 1986, but many older homes and water systems still use lead pipes. In 2023, the EPA identified about 9 million lead service lines used for drinking water in the U.S. with a$625 billion price tag— conservatively — to address the issue.
Officials at the state’s largest water systems, Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, said they don’t anticipate finding many lead pipes across the water system.
“Many lines owned by the Water Authority have already been replaced,” said ABCWUA Compliance Manager Danielle Shuryn. “Evidence so far indicates that lead pipes were not prevalent in any parts of the service area.
About half of the system’s 200,000 water lines were installed before 1988, and about 10% have already been inspected by staff, she said, but noted the actual survey will possibly take all 10 years to complete.
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