Bartlett, Tennessee
What is the Water Quality in Bartlett, Tennessee?
Compared to other US cities, Bartlett water quality ranks in the lower range for contamination excluding Lead.
Most of their 13 contaminants have cancer-causing attributes.
- Haloacetic acids (HAA5) are at high levels: 29x health guidelines.
- Haloacetic acids (HAA9) are at high levels: 82x 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 Bartlett water.
What’s in Bartlett water?
Here are the top 5 chemical compounds in your water and what health issues they can potentially cause:
- Bromodichloromethane – Potential effect: Cancer
- Hexavalent Chromium – Potential effect: Cancer
- Haloacetic acids (HAA5) – Potential effect: Cancer
- Haloacetic acids (HAA9) – Potential effect: Cancer
- Total trihalomethanes – Potential effect: Cancer
These are five of the 13 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).
6 of these contaminants are rated as exceeding EWG Health Guidelines.
Does Bartlett have Lead contamination?
Yes, Bartlett has lead in its water. The most recent Lead samples collected from 2016 through 2018 showed concentrations up to 23.1 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 Bartlett’s water come from?
Bartlett’s water comes from the Wolf River Outlet watershed.
All 8 water sources in the Wolf River Outlet watershed are in Impaired or Unknown condition. These include:
- Cypress Creek – multiple sections
- Harrington Creek
- Harrison Creek
- Mississippi River
- Wolf River
- Workhouse Bayou
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 three uses:
- Aquatic Life
- Fish and Shellfish Consumption
- Recreation
Learn more from How’s My Waterway
See below for what you can do to improve Bartlett’s water.
What Can You Do?
Information about water quality in Bartlett 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 90% of contaminants in your drinking water.
- Berkey filters can also remove up to 99.99% of Lead in Bartlett water.
- Brita can filter 7 of 13 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 12 of the 13 contaminants in your whole house, consider a Reverse Osmosis water filtration system for your home.
- These are more expensive than pitchers to purchase, but are more effective.
- They have the benefit of filtering out all of these heavy hitters:
- Bromodichloromethane
- Bromoform
- Chloroform
- Cobalt
- Dibromochloromethane
- Haloacetic acids (HAA5 and HAA9) – byproduct of chlorination*
- Hexavalent chromium
- Nitrate
- 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.cityofbartlett.org/ to find contact information for your local officials.