Pinellas Park, Florida

What is the Water Quality in Pinellas Park, Florida?

Compared to other US cities, Pinellas Park water quality ranks in the middle range for contamination excluding Lead.

Most of their 20 contaminants have cancer-causing attributes.

• Arsenic is at extremely high levels: 54x health guidelines.

Let’s look closer at what’s in Pinellas Park water.

What’s in Pinellas Park water?

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

1. Arsenic – Potential effect: Cancer
2. Chlorate – Potential effect: Harm to the thyroid
3. Hexavalent Chromium – Potential effect: Cancer
4. Haloacetic acids (HAA5) – Potential effect: Cancer
5. Total trihalomethanes – Potential effect: Cancer

These are five of the 20 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).

These 6 contaminants are rated as exceeding EWG Health Guidelines.

Does Pinellas Park have Lead contamination?

Yes, Pinellas Park has lead in its water. The most recent Lead samples collected in 2017 showed concentrations up to 1.9 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 to learn how to filter out contaminants.

Where does Pinellas Park’s water come from?

Pinellas Park’s water comes from the Lake Seminole watershed.

All 22 water sources in the Lake Seminole watershed are in Impaired or Unknown condition. These include:

• Allen Creek
• Boca Ciega Bay
• Bonn Creek
• Cross Bayou Drain
• Cross Canal
• Joe’s Creek
• Lake Seminole
• Long Bayou
• McKay Creek
• Pinellas Park Ditch No. 1 (Tidal segment)
• Pinellas Park Ditch No. 5 (Bonn Creek)
• Rattlesnake Creek
• St. Joe Creek
• Starkey Basin

Ideally, a water source would be rated in Good condition.

Learn more from How’s My Waterway

See below for what you can do to improve Pinellas Park’s water.

What Can You Do?

Information about water quality in Pinellas Park 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 68.4% of contaminants in your drinking water.
  • Berkey filters can also remove up to 99.99% of Lead in Pinellas Park water.
  • Brita can filter 5 of the 20 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 17 of the 20 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
    • Barium
    • Chromium (hexavalent)
    • Cyanide
    • Dalapon
    • Fluoride
    • Haloacetic acids – byproduct of chlorination
    • Nitrate
    • Selenium
    • Strontium
    • Thallium
    • Total trihalomethanes – byproduct of chlorination

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.pinellas-park.com/ to find contact information for your local officials.

Water Quality in Other Florida Cities

Florida Water Quality Page