Coeur d'Alene, Idaho
What is the Water Quality in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho?
Compared to other US cities, Coeur d’Alene water quality ranks in the lower range for contamination excluding Lead.
Most of their 17 contaminants have cancer-causing attributes.
- Arsenic is at extremely high levels: 1,487x health guidelines.
Uranium and Radium are also in the water at elevated levels.
Let’s look closer at what’s in Coeur d’Alene water.
What’s in Coeur d’Alene water?
Here are the top 5 chemical compounds in your water and what health issues they can potentially cause:
- Arsenic – Potential effect: Cancer
- Hexavalent Chromium – Potential effect: Cancer
- Nitrate – Potential effect: Cancer
- Radium – Potential effect: Cancer
- Uranium – Potential effect: Cancer
These are five of the 17 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).
These 7 contaminants are rated as exceeding EWG Health Guidelines.
Does Coeur d’Alene have Lead contamination?
Yes, Coeur d’Alene has lead in its water. The most recent Lead samples collected from 2014 through 2016 showed concentrations up to 3.0 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 Coeur d’Alene’s water come from?
Coeur d’Alene’s water comes from the Coeur d’Alene Lake watershed.
16 of the 17 water sources in the Coeur d’Alene Lake watershed are in Impaired or Unknown condition. These include:
- Beauty Creek – Source to m0uth
- Carlin Creek – Source to mouth
- Coeur d’Alene Lake
- Cougar Creek – Source to mouth
- Fernan Creek – Fernan Lake to mouth
- Kid Creek – Source to mouth
- Mica Creek – Source to mouth
- Spokane River – Coeur d’Alene Lake to Post Falls Dam
Ideally, a water source would be rated in Good condition. Only one water source is currently in good condition: Turner Creek.
Learn more from How’s My Waterway
See below for what you can do to improve Coeur d’Alene’s water.
What Can You Do?
Information about water quality in Coeur d’Alene can be surprising and downright scary.
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 83.3% of contaminants in your drinking water.
- Berkey filters can also remove up to 99.99% of Lead in Coeur d’Alene water.
- Brita can filter 3 contaminants and Lead depending on the filter.
- This does not include Arsenic, Barium, Cobalt, Chromium, Germanium, Radium, or Uranium.
- Note: We may receive a commission if you decide to purchase filters through links on this page.
- To filter out 14 of the 17 contaminants, consider a Reverse Osmosis water filtration system for your house.
- These are typically more expensive than pitchers to purchase, but are much more effective.
- They have the benefit of filtering out heavy hitters like:
- Arsenic
- Barium
- Chromium (hexavalent)
- Chromium (total)
- Cobalt
- Nitrate
- Radium
- Strontium
- Total trihalomethanes (TTHMs)
- Uranium
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.cdaid.org/government to find contact information for your local officials.