National Drinking Water Database
Caprock Water Company - Carlsbad, NM
Serves 120 people - Test data available: 2004-2005
This drinking water quality report shows results of tests conducted by the water utility and provided to the Environmental Working Group (EWG) by the New Mexico Environment Department. It is part of EWG's national database that includes 47,667 drinking water utilities and 20 million test results. Water utilities nationwide detected more than 300 pollutants between 2004 and 2009. More than half of these chemicals are unregulated, legal in any amount. Despite this widespread contamination, the federal government invests few resources to protecting rivers, reservoirs, and groundwater from pollution in the first place. The information below summarizes test results for this utility and lists potential health concerns.
The New Mexico Environment Department did not respond to requests for more recent test data. Contact your water utility for the latest water quality report.
Contaminants Exceeding Health Guidelines
| Contaminant | Average/ Maximum Result | Health Limit Exceeded | Legal Limit Exceeded | Testing History -Tested  -Detected  -Over Health Guidelines  -Over Legal Limit* |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total haloacetic acids (HAAs)Total haloacetic acids refers to the sum of the concentrations of five related disinfection byproducts in a water sample: dichloroacetic acid, trichloroacetic acid, monochloroacetic acid, monobromoacetic acid and dibromoacetic acid. | 5.64 ppb 5.64 ppb | Yes 0.7 ppb | No 60 ppb |  |
| NOTE: Each dot in the above graph represents one month. * Water utilities are noted as exceeding the legal limit if any test is above the maximum contaminant level (MCL). Most MCLs are based on annual averages so exceeding the MCL for one test does not necessarily indicate that the system is out of compliance. | ||||
Other Detected Contaminants
| Contaminant | Average/ Maximum Result | Health Limit Exceeded | Legal Limit Exceeded | Testing History-Tested -Detected -Over Health Guidelines -Over Legal Limit* |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CopperCopper is a naturally occuring metal and drinking water contaminant that enters tap water by corrosion of household plumbing systems and erosion of natural deposits. | 22 ppb 22 ppb | No 300 ppb | No 1000 ppb | |
| Monochloroacetic acidMonochloroacetic acid is a disinfection byproduct regulated by EPA as one of five haloacetic acids that are formed when chlorine, chloramines or other disinfectants react with organic and inorganic matter in water. | 5.64 ppb 5.64 ppb | No 70 ppb | No 60 ppb | |
| NOTE: Each dot in the above graph represents one month. * Water utilities are noted as exceeding the legal limit if any test is above the maximum contaminant level (MCL). Most MCLs are based on annual averages so exceeding the MCL for one test does not necessarily indicate that the system is out of compliance. | ||||
Contaminants Not Detected - 10 chemicals
Bromodichloromethane, Bromoform, Chloroform, Dibromoacetic acid, Dibromochloromethane, Dichloroacetic acid, Lead (total), Monobromoacetic acid, Total trihalomethanes (TTHMs), Trichloroacetic acid
Pollution Summary
| 3 | Total Contaminants Detected (2004 - 2005) Copper, Monochloroacetic acid, Total haloacetic acids (HAAs) |
| 0 | Agricultural Pollutants (pesticides, fertilizer, factory farms) |
| 1 | Sprawl and Urban Pollutants (road runoff, lawn pesticides, human waste) |
| 0 | Industrial Pollutants |
| 2 | Water Treatment and Distribution Byproducts (pipes and fixtures, treatment chemicals and byproducts) |
| 1 | Naturally Occurring (naturally present but increased for lands denuded by sprawl, agriculture, or industrial development) |
EPA Violation Summary
| Violation Category | Number of Violations |
|---|---|
| MCL and Treatment (click see violations) | 1 |
Information on violations is drawn directly from EPA's national violations database in the Agency's Safe Drinking Water Information System. Analyses by others have raised questions about the quality of the information in EPA's database. For the purposes of this investigation, EWG is not showing below or including in our analyses, those violations for individual water suppliers that occurred on days for which the total number of violations assigned by EPA to that water supplier was greater than 20. This criteria was based on common characteristics of incorrect violations data as identified by water utilities, from a review of EPA's violations data by several hundred utilities prior to the release of EWG's investigation.