Bayonne, New Jersey

What is the Water Quality in Bayonne, New Jersey?

[Updated: June 10, 2023]

Compared to other US cities, Bayonne water quality ranks in the middle range for contamination excluding Lead.

Most of their 25 contaminants have cancer-causing attributes.

• Chloroform is at extremely high levels: 44.1x health guidelines.

Let’s look closer at what’s in Bayonne water.

What’s in Bayonne water?

Here are the top 5 chemical compounds in your water and what health issues they can potentially cause:

1. Bromodichloromethane – Potential effect: Cancer
2. Chloroform – Potential effect: Cancer
3. Hexavalent Chromium – Potential effect: Cancer
4. Haloacetic acids (HAA5) – Potential effect: Cancer
5. Total trihalomethanes – Potential effect: Cancer

These are five of the 25 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).

10 of these contaminants are rated as exceeding EWG Health Guidelines.

Does Bayonne have Lead contamination?

Yes, Bayonne has lead in its water. The most recent Lead samples collected from 2015 through 2017 showed concentrations up to 26.5 parts per billion.

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 Bayonne’s water come from?

Bayonne’s water comes from the Upper Bay – The Narrows watershed.

All 7 water sources in the Upper Bay – The Narrows watershed are in Impaired condition. These include:

• East River (Lower)
• Erie Basin
• Gowanus Canal
• Hudson River (Class I)
• Hudson River (Lower)
• Upper New York Bay
• Upper New York Bay / Kill Van Kull

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:

1. Aquatic Life
2. Fish and Shellfish Consumption
3. Recreation

Learn more from How’s My Waterway

See below for what you can do to improve Bayonne’s water.

Conclusion – What Can You Do?

Information about water quality in Bayonne can be surprising.

But there are things you can do in your home to clean up your water.

1. Test Your Water using Varify Home Test Kits or similar.
2. To Remove Lead and Other Contaminants In Your Home:

• Use Activated Carbon filters to remove most contaminants in your drinking water.
  • Faucet-mount filters work better than pitchers.
  • PUR and Brita are low-cost and effective.

• 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
    • Chloroform
    • Dichloroacetic acid
    • Fluoride
    • Haloacetic acids – chlorination byproduct*
    • Hexavalent chromium
    • Monobromoacetic acid
    • Monochloroacetic acid
    • Strontium
    • Total trihalomethanes – chlorination byproduct*
    • Trichloroacetic acid
  • 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.bayonnenj.org/ to find contact information for your local officials.

Water Quality in Other New Jersey Cities

New Jersey Water Quality Page