Collierville, Tennessee

What is the Water Quality in Collierville, Tennessee?

Compared to other US cities, Collierville water quality ranks in the low range for contamination excluding Lead.

Most of their 10 contaminants have cancer-causing attributes. Radium is at particularly high levels: 26x health guidelines.

Let’s look closer at what’s in Collierville water.

What’s in Collierville water?

Here are the top 5 chemical compounds in your water and what health issues they can potentially cause:

1. Hexavalent Chromium – Potential effect: Cancer
2. Haloacetic acids (HAA5) – Potential effect: Cancer
3. Nitrate – Potential effect: Cancer
4. Radium – Potential effect: Cancer
5. Total trihalomethanes – Potential effect: Cancer

These are five of the 10 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).

All 5 of these contaminants are rated as exceeding EWG Health Guidelines.

Does Collierville have Lead contamination?

Yes, Collierville has lead in its water. The most recent Lead samples collected from 2015 through 2017 showed concentrations up to 6.7 parts per billion.

The legal limit for lead is 15 parts per billion. Being well-below this level is a good thing.

Concentrations between 3.8 ppb and 15 ppb put a formula-fed baby at risk of elevated blood lead levels. Read more about the symptoms of Lead in water.

There is no safe level of lead for humans.

The good news is that 99.99% of the lead can be filtered out.

See the What Can You Do? section below for all of the contaminants you can filter out and how to do it.

Where does Collierville’s water come from?

Collierville’s water comes from the Upper Nonconnah Creek watershed.

All waterbodies in the Upper Nonconnah Creek watershed are in Impaired or Unknown condition. These include:

• Nonconnah Creek – Impaired
• 3 Unnamed Tributaries of Nonconnah Creek
• Miscellaneous smaller tributaries of Nonconnah Creek

Ideally, a water source would be rated in Good condition. See below for what you can do to improve Collierville’s water.

Learn more from How’s My Waterway here

What Can You Do?

Information about water quality in Collierville can be surprising.

But there are things you can do in your home to clean up your water.

To Remove Lead and Other Contaminants In Your Home:

There is one solution that beats Brita, PUR, and expensive whole house systems.

• It costs less per gallon.
• Needs fewer filter changes.
• And it doesn’t make your water taste weird.

• Use Berkey filters with activated carbon to filter out at least 85% of contaminants in Collierville drinking water.
  • Berkey filters can also remove up to 99.99% of Lead in Collierville water.
  • Brita can filter 3 contaminants (30%) and Lead depending on the filter.
  • Note: We may receive a commission if you decide to purchase filters through links on this page.
• To filter out 8 of the 10 contaminants in your whole house, consider a Reverse Osmosis water filtration system.
  • These are typically more expensive than pitchers to purchase, but may require fewer filter changes over time.
  • They have the benefit of filtering out heavy hitters like:
    • Chromium (hexavalent)
    • Nitrate
    • Radium
    • Strontium

In Your Community:

Contact your local government officials and put pressure on them to invest in cleaner waterways and upgraded city water filtration and treatment.

Go to: https://collierville.com/government to find contact information for your local officials.

Water Quality in Other Tennessee Cities

Tennessee Water Quality Page