Apex, North Carolina
What is the Water Quality in Apex, North Carolina?
Compared to other US cities, Apex water quality ranks in the middle range for contamination excluding Lead.
Most of their 24 contaminants have cancer-causing attributes.
- Chloroform is at extremely high levels: 32x health guidelines.
- Haloacetic acids (HAA5) are at extremely high levels: 179x health guidelines.
- Haloacetic acids (HAA9) are at extremely high levels: 412x health guidelines.
- HAA5 and HAA9 are byproducts of chlorine treatment, a common method of disinfecting water supplies.
Let’s look closer at what’s in Apex water.
What’s in Apex water?
Here are the top 5 chemical compounds in your water and what health issues they can potentially cause:
- Bromate – Potential effect: Cancer
- Bromodichloromethane – Potential effect: Cancer
- Chloroform – Potential effect: Cancer
- Haloacetic acids (HAA5 and HAA9) – Potential effect: Cancer
- Total trihalomethanes – Potential effect: Cancer
These are five of the 24 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).
13 of these contaminants are rated as exceeding EWG Health Guidelines.
Does Apex have Lead contamination?
Yes, Apex has lead in its water. The most recent Lead samples collected in 2019 showed concentrations up to 11.1 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 filtered out.
See the What Can You Do? section below to learn how to filter out contaminants.
Where does Apex’s water come from?
Apex’s water comes from the Beaver Creek watershed.
5 of the 6 assessed water sources in the Beaver Creek watershed are in Impaired condition. These include:
- Morgan Creek
- New Hope Creek
- New Hope River – multiple arms of B. Everett Jordan Lake
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 Apex’s water.
What Can You Do?
Information about water quality in Apex can be surprising.
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 84% of contaminants in your drinking water.
- Berkey filters can also remove up to 99.99% of Lead in Apex water.
- Brita can filter 17 of 24 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 21 of the 24 contaminants, consider a Reverse Osmosis water filtration system for your house.
- These are more expensive than pitchers to purchase, but are much more effective.
- They have the benefit of filtering out heavy hitters like:
- 1,4-Dioxane
- Bromate
- Bromoform
- Chloroform – strong anesthetic
- Fluoride
- Haloacetic acids (HAA5 and HAA9) – byproducts of chlorination*
- Hexavalent chromium
- Monobromoacetic acid
- PFBA – member of the PFAS group of chemicals
- PFHPA – member of the PFAS group of chemicals
- PFHxa – member of the PFAS group of chemicals
- PFPeA – member of the PFAS group of chemicals
- 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: http://www.apexnc.org/ to find contact information for your local officials.