Battle Creek, Michigan
What is the Water Quality in Battle Creek, Michigan?
Compared to other US cities, Battle Creek water quality ranks in the low-mid range for contamination excluding Lead.
Most of their 17 contaminants have cancer-causing attributes.
- Chloroform is at particularly high levels: 42x health guidelines.
Let’s look closer at what’s in Battle Creek water.
What’s in Battle Creek water?
Here are the top 3 chemical compounds in your water and what health issues they can potentially cause:
- Haloacetic acids (HAA5) – Potential effect: Cancer
- Radium – Potential effect: Cancer
- Total trihalomethanes – Potential effect: Cancer
These are three of the 17 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).
12 of the total contaminants are rated as exceeding EWG Health Guidelines.
Does Battle Creek have Lead contamination?
Yes, Battle Creek has lead in its water. The most recent Lead samples collected in 2019 showed concentrations up to 17.0 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 Battle Creek’s water come from?
Battle Creek’s water comes from the Spring Lakes-Battle Creek watershed.
The rivers and streams in the Spring Lakes-Battle Creek watershed are in Impaired condition.
Ideally, a water source would be rated in Good condition. See below for what you can do to improve Battle Creek’s water.
Learn more from How’s My Waterway here
What Can You Do?
Information about water quality in Battle Creek, Michigan can be surprising and downright scary.
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 the majority of contaminants in Battle Creek’s drinking water.
- Berkey filters can also remove up to 99.99% of Lead in Battle Creek water.
- Brita can filter 13 contaminants 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 16 of the 17 contaminants in your whole house, consider a whole house 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 (total)
- Fluoride
- Haloacetic acids (HAA5)
- 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: http://www.battlecreekmi.gov/ to find contact information for your local officials.