Brockton, Massachusetts

What is the Water Quality in Brockton, Massachusetts?

[Updated: June 13, 2023]

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

Most of their 25 contaminants have cancer-causing attributes.

• Arsenic is at very high levels: 115x health guidelines.
• Chloroform is at very high levels: 71x health guidelines.
• Haloacetic acids (HAA5) are at extremely high levels: 217x health guidelines.
• Haloacetic acids (HAA9) are at extremely high levels: 607x health guidelines.
  • These are both byproducts of the chlorine treatment process most water supplies go through.

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

What’s in Brockton water?

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

1. Arsenic – Potential effect: Cancer
2. Bromodichloromethane – Potential effect: Cancer
3. Chloroform – Potential effect: Cancer
4. Haloacetic acids – Potential effect: Cancer
5. Total trihalomethanes – Potential effect: Cancer

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

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

Does Brockton water have Lead contamination?

Yes, Brockton has lead in its water. The most recent Lead samples collected from 2015 through 2017 showed concentrations up to 1.0 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 Brockton’s water come from?

Brockton’s water comes from the Matfield River watershed.

All 16 EPA assessed water sources in the Matfield River watershed are in Impaired or Unknown condition. These include:

• Beaver Brook
• Brockton Reservoir
• Cleveland Pond
• Cross Pond
• Cushing Pond
• Lovett Brook
• Lower Porter Pond
• Matfield River
• Meadow Brook
• Salisbury Brook
• Salisbury Plain River – two segments
• Thirtyacre Pond
• Trout Brook
• Upper Porter Pond
• Waldo Lake

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 these uses:

1. Drinking Water
2. Aquatic Life
3. Fish and Shellfish Consumption
4. Recreation

Learn more from How’s My Waterway

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

Conclusion – What Can You Do?

Information about water quality in Brockton 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, consider a Reverse Osmosis water filtration system for your house.
  • These are more expensive than pitchers to purchase, but can be more effective.
  • They have the benefit of filtering out heavy hitters like:
    • Arsenic – health risks
    • Barium – health risks in water
    • Bromodichloromethane – health risks in drinking water
    • Bromoform
    • Chloroform – side effects
    • Dibromoacetic acid
    • Dibromochloromethane
    • Dichloroacetic acid
    • Haloacetic acids – chlorination byproduct*
    • Hexavalent chromium – health effects
    • Monobromoacetic acid
    • Monochloroacetic acid
    • Nitrate
    • Perchlorate – risks
    • Strontium
    • Thallium
    • Total trihalomethanes – byproduct of chlorination*
    • 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://brockton.ma.us/government/ to find contact information for your local officials.

Water Quality in Other Massachusetts Cities

Massachusetts Water Quality Page