Spokane, Washington
Water Quality in Spokane, Washington
Watershed: Chester Creek – Spokane River
What is the water quality like in Spokane, WA?
Let’s dive deeper into what’s in Spokane water.
What’s in Spokane water?
Here are the top 5 chemical compounds in your water and what health issues they can potentially cause:
- Arsenic – Potential effect: Cancer
- Hexavalent Chromium – Potential effect: Cancer
- Radium – Potential effect: Cancer
- Radon – Potential effect: Cancer
- Total trihalomethanes – Potential effect: Cancer
These are five of the 19 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).
9 of these contaminants are rated as exceeding EWG Health Guidelines.
See the What Can You Do? section below for all of the contaminants you can filter out and how to do it.
Where does Spokane’s water come from?
Spokane’s water comes from the Chester Creek – Spokane River watershed.
All 3 EPA assessed water sources in the Chester Creek – Spokane River watershed are in Impaired condition. These include:
- Spokane River – 3 segments
Ideally, a water source would be rated in Good condition.
Whether a water source is in Impaired or Good condition refers to the quality of these uses:
- Drinking Water
- Aquatic Life
- Fish and Shellfish Consumption
- Recreation
Learn more from How’s My Waterway
See below for what you can do to improve Spokane’s water.
Conclusion – What Can You Do?
Information about water quality can be surprising.
But there’s no reason to lose hope. There are things you can do in your household as well as things you can do at a community level.
In Your Household:
- Use Berkey filters with activated carbon to filter out 14 of the 19 contaminants in your drinking water.
- Berkey filters can also remove up to 99.99% of Lead in Spokane water.
- Brita can filter 6 contaminants (and Lead depending on the filter).
- Brita and PUR do not filter Arsenic, Hexavalent Chromium, Radium, or Selenium.
- Note: We may receive a commission if you decide to purchase filters through links on this page.
- To filter out 16 of the 19 contaminants, consider a Reverse Osmosis water filtration system for your house.
- These are more expensive than pitchers to purchase, but can be more effective.
- They have the benefit of filtering out heavy hitters like:
- Arsenic – health effects in water
- Barium – In low doses, barium ions act as a muscle stimulant, and higher doses affect the nervous system, causing cardiac irregularities, tremors, weakness, anxiety, shortness of breath, and paralysis.
- Bromodichloromethane – health risks in drinking water
- Bromoform
- Chloroform – side effects
- Chromium (total)
- Dibromochloromethane
- Hexavalent chromium – health effects
- Molybdenum
- Nitrate
- Nitrite
- Radium
- Radon – Health risks
- Selenium – toxicity
- Strontium
- Total trihalomethanes – byproduct of chlorination*
*Chlorination is an effective method of disinfecting/treating drinking water. You can then use a water filter to reduce the effects of chlorination byproducts to get the safest, cleanest water possible.
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://my.spokanecity.org/ to find contact information for your local officials.