Can You Drink Tap Water in Nashville?
Nashville water quality ranks in the low range for contaminants.
- For reference, Miramar, Florida has 75 contaminants. (The most of any U.S. city over 50,000.)
- Rochester Hills, Michigan has 5.
- Note: These are both outliers.
With a total of 12 contaminants in your drinking water, 8 of those exceed health guidelines.
Drinking unfiltered water from Nashville water sources could be hazardous to your health.
Let’s look closer at Nashville water quality.
Nashville Water Contamination
Nashville has a total of 12 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).
67% of these contaminants (8 of 12) are rated as exceeding health guidelines.
They include things like Chloroform and Radium.
Most of the contaminants pose a risk of Cancer if allowed to stay in your drinking water.
Lead in Nashville Water
Nashville drinking water has very low levels of lead in it.
90 percent of samples taken from Nashville water sources had a lead concentration of 1.0 parts per billion (ppb) or less.
For comparison:
Lead concentrations of 3.9 ppb to 15 ppb “put a formula-fed baby at risk of elevated blood lead levels.” (ewg.org)
Here are a few of the lead poisoning symptoms for children under 6:
- Abdominal Pain
- Developmental Delay
- Learning Difficulties
- Fatigue
- Weight loss
- Irritability
- Hearing loss
There is no safe level of lead for humans.
So, What Can You Do?
Information about water quality can be surprising.
There are things you can do today to keep you and your family safe and healthy.
In Your Household:
Use Berkey water filters with activated carbon to filter out 11 of the 12 contaminants, or 91.7 percent, in your drinking water.
(They also remove up to 99% of lead contamination in Nashville water.)
Brita and PUR pitchers only manage 50% or 6 out of 12.
Save money on new and replacement filters when you use the links at waterbadge.com/filters.
Nashville Whole House Water Filtration Systems
A whole house filtration system will also filter out 11 of 12 contaminants, making it another effective choice.
A few things to note:
- Whole house systems are much more effective than water pitchers like Brita and PUR.
- However, the initial cost is higher and they require installation.
For a list of the contaminants that can be filtered out by a whole house system, go to Nashville’s Water Quality page.
To filter out the highest number of contaminants, use our recommendations on the WaterBadge Filters page:
Conclusion: Can You Drink Tap Water in Nashville?
Yes. But we wouldn’t recommend it without filtering it first.
This small step can save you and your loved ones from health problems later.
You deserve to feel safe when you drink your own tap water.
At WaterBadge, our goal is to make that a reality.
To support this mission, we’ve partnered with companies that are dedicated to water filtration and safety.
When you purchase filters and systems through them, you’re also supporting WaterBadge’s mission of cleaner water for everyone.
Thanks for doing your part.
Want to learn more about water quality around the U.S.?
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