Hoboken, New Jersey
What is the Water Quality in Hoboken, New Jersey?
Compared to other US cities, Hoboken water quality ranks in the middle range for contamination excluding Lead.
Most of their 26 contaminants have cancer-causing attributes.
- Chloroform is at high levels: 70x health guidelines.
Let’s look closer at what’s in Hoboken water.
What’s in Hoboken water?
Here are the top 5 chemical compounds in your water and what health issues they can potentially cause:
- Arsenic – Potential effect: Cancer
- Chloroform – Potential effect: Cancer
- Hexavalent Chromium – Potential effect: Cancer
- Haloacetic acids (HAA5) – Potential effect: Cancer
- Total trihalomethanes – Potential effect: Cancer
These are five of the 26 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).
12 of these contaminants are rated as exceeding EWG Health Guidelines.
Does Hoboken have Lead contamination?
Yes, Hoboken has lead in its water. The most recent Lead samples collected in 2018 showed concentrations up to 8.6 parts per billion (ppb).
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 to learn how to filter out contaminants.
Where does Hoboken’s water come from?
Hoboken’s water comes from the East River – Hudson River watershed.
12 of the 13 water sources in the East River – Hudson River watershed are in Impaired or Unknown condition. These include:
- East River, Lower
- Harlem Meer
- Harlem River
- Hudson River (Class I)
- Hudson River (lower)
- Newtown Creek and tidal tributaries
- The Lake in Central Park
- Upper New York Bay
- Upper New York Bay / Kill Van Kull
Ideally, a water source would be rated in Good condition. Only one water source is currently in good condition. This source is the Central Park Reservoir.
Learn more from How’s My Waterway
See below for what you can do to improve Hoboken’s water.
What Can You Do?
Information about water quality in Hoboken 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 at least 76% of contaminants in your drinking water.
- Berkey filters can also remove up to 99.99% of Lead in Hoboken water.
- They will also remove Arsenic, Nitrates, and PFOS.
- Brita can filter 13 contaminants and Lead depending on the filter.
- This does not include Arsenic, Cyanide, Nitrates, or PFOS.
- Note: We may receive a commission if you decide to purchase filters through links on this page.
- Berkey filters can also remove up to 99.99% of Lead in Hoboken water.
- To filter out 22 of the 25 contaminants in your whole house, consider a whole house water filtration system.
- These are typically more expensive than pitchers to purchase, but can be more effective.
- They have the benefit of filtering out heavy hitters like:
- Aluminum
- Arsenic
- Barium – health risks in water
- Chloroform – side effects
- Chromium (total)
- Cyanide – exposure limits
- Hexavalent chromium – health effects
- Nitrate
- Nitrite
- PFOS
- 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://www.hobokennj.gov/ to find contact information for your local officials.