West New York, New Jersey

What is the Water Quality in West New York, New Jersey?

[Updated: June 10, 2023]

Compared to other US cities, West New York water quality ranks in the high range for contamination excluding Lead.

Most of their 33 contaminants have cancer-causing attributes.

• Arsenic is at extremely high levels: 123x health guidelines.
• West New York, NJ also has PFOS in its water supply.
  • PFOS is one of a group of “forever chemicals” with potentially dangerous health effects.

Let’s look closer at what’s in West New York water.

What’s in West New York water?

Here are the top 6 chemical compounds in your water and what health issues they can potentially cause:

1. Arsenic – Potential effect: Cancer
2. Bromodichloromethane – Potential effect: Cancer
3. Chloroform – Potential effect: Cancer
4. Hexavalent Chromium – Potential effect: Cancer
5. Haloacetic acids (HAA5) – Potential effect: Cancer
6. Total trihalomethanes – Potential effect: Cancer

These are six of the 33 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).

15 of these contaminants are rated as exceeding EWG Health Guidelines.

Does West New York have Lead contamination?

Yes, West New York has extremely high lead levels in its water. The most recent Lead samples collected in 2019 showed concentrations up to 215 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 West New York’s water come from?

West New York’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 1)
• Hudson River (lower)
• Newtown Creek and tidal tributaries
• The Lake in Central Park
• 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 West New York’s water.

What Can You Do?

Information about water quality in West New York, NJ can be surprising and downright scary.

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

1. Test Your Water using Varify Home Test Kits or similar.
2. To Remove Lead and Other Contaminants In Your Home:

• Use Activated Carbon filters to remove most contaminants in your drinking water.
  • Faucet-mount filters work better than pitchers.
  • PUR and Brita are low-cost and effective.

• To filter out even more contaminants, consider a Reverse Osmosis water filtration system for your house.
  • These are typically more expensive than pitchers to purchase, but are much more effective.
  • They have the benefit of filtering out heavy hitters like:
    • Arsenic
    • Aluminum
    • Antimony
    • Barium
    • Bromide
    • Bromoform
    • Chloroform
    • Chromium
    • Cyanide
    • Hexavalent chromium
    • Nitrate
    • Nitrite
    • PFNA
    • PFOS
    • Strontium
    • Toluene
    • Tricholoroacetic acid
    • Total trihalomethanes – TTHMs
    • Uranium
  • Our recommendation: APEC Reverse Osmosis Systems

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.westnewyorknj.org/ to find contact information for your local officials.

Water Quality in Other New Jersey Cities

New Jersey Water Quality Page