Ankeny, Iowa
What is the Water Quality in Ankeny, Iowa?
[Updated: June 9, 2023]
Compared to other US cities, Ankeny water quality ranks in the middle range for contamination excluding Lead.
Most of their 23 contaminants have cancer-causing attributes.
- Arsenic is at very high levels: 125x health guidelines.
- Haloacetic acids (HAA5) are at extremely high levels: 86x health guidelines.
- Haloacetic acids (HAA9) are at extremely high levels: 277x health guidelines.
- These are both byproducts of the chlorine treatment process most water supplies go through.
Let’s look closer at what’s in Ankeny water.
What’s in Ankeny 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
- Radium – Potential effect: Cancer
These are five of the 23 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).
14 of these contaminants are rated as exceeding EWG Health Guidelines.
Does Ankeny have Lead contamination?
No, Ankeny does not currently have lead in its water. The most recent Lead samples collected in 2019 showed concentrations of 0.0 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 removed.
See the What Can You Do? section below to learn how to filter out contaminants.
Where does Ankeny’s water come from?
Ankeny’s water comes from the Middle Fourmile Creek watershed.
The only EPA assessed water source in the Middle Fourmile Creek watershed is Fourmile Creek itself. It’s in Unknown condition
Ideally, a water source would be Known and 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 Ankeny’s water.
Conclusion – What Can You Do?
Information about water quality in Ankeny can be surprising.
But there are things you can do in your home to clean up Ankeny water.
- Test Your Water using Varify Home Test Kits or similar.
- To Remove Lead and Other Contaminants In Your Home:
- Use Activated Carbon filters to remove most contaminants in your drinking water.
- To filter out even more contaminants in your whole house, consider a Reverse Osmosis water filtration system for your home.
- These are more expensive than pitchers to purchase, but can be more effective.
- They have the benefit of filtering out heavy hitters like:
- Bromodichloromethane
- Bromoform – Health implications
- Chloroform
- Cobalt
- Fluoride
- Haloacetic acids – chlorination byproduct*
- Hexavalent chromium
- Nitrate
- Radium
- Strontium
- Total trihalomethanes – byproduct of chlorination*
- Our recommendation: APEC Reverse Osmosis Systems
*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://www.ankenyiowa.gov/ to find contact information for your local officials.