Jacksonville, Florida

Water Quality in Jacksonville, Florida

Watershed: McCoy Creek

What is the water quality like in Jacksonville, FL?

Let’s dive deeper into what’s in Jacksonville water.

What’s in Jacksonville water?

Here are the top 3 chemical compounds in your water and what health issues they can potentially cause:

1. Haloacetic acids – Potential effect: Cancer
2. Radium – Potential effect: Cancer
3. Total trihalomethanes – Potential effect: Cancer

These are three of the 23 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).

These 3 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 Jacksonville’s water come from?

Jacksonville’s water comes from the McCoy Creek watershed.

13 of the 14 EPA assessed water sources in the McCoy Creek watershed are in Impaired or Unknown condition. These include:

• Big Fishweir Creek
• Craig Creek
• Deer Creek
• Hogan Creek
• Long Branch
• McCoy Creek
• Miller Creek
• Miramar Creek
• Moncrief Creek
• Ribault River
• St. John’s River – 2 segments

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

Whether a water source is in Impaired or Good condition refers to the quality of these uses:

1. Drinking Water
2. Aquatic Life
3. Fish and Shellfish Consumption
4. Recreation

Learn more from How’s My Waterway

See below for what you can do to improve Jacksonville’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 19 of the 23 contaminants in your drinking water.
  • Berkey filters can also remove up to 99.99% of Lead in Jacksonville water.
  • Brita can filter 6 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 20 of the 23 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:
    • Aluminum
    • Antimony
    • 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.
    • Chromium (total)
    • Dichloromethane
    • Fluoride
    • Haloacetic acids – chlorination byproduct*
    • Hexavalent chromium – health effects
    • Molybdenum
    • Nitrate
    • Nitrite
    • Radium
    • Selenium – toxicity
    • Strontium
    • Testosterone
    • Thallium
    • Total trihalomethanes – byproduct of chlorination*
    • Uranium

*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: http://www.coj.net/ to find contact information for your local officials.

Water Quality in Other Florida Cities

Florida Water Quality Page