East Orange, New Jersey
What is the Water Quality in East Orange, New Jersey?
Compared to other US cities, East Orange water quality ranks in the middle range for contamination excluding Lead.
Most of their 28 contaminants have cancer-causing attributes.
- Arsenic is at extremely high levels: 206x health guidelines.
- Haloacetic acids (HAA5) are at extremely high levels: 174x health guidelines.
- Haloacetic acids (HAA9) are at very high levels: 56x health guidelines.
- These are both byproducts of the chlorine treatment process most water supplies go through.
Let’s look closer at what’s in East Orange water.
What’s in East Orange water?
Here are the top 5 chemical compounds in your water and what health issues they can potentially cause:
- Arsenic – Potential effect: Cancer
- Chloroform – Potential effect: Cancer
- Hexavalent Chromium – Potential effect: Cancer
- Haloacetic acids (HAA5) – Potential effect: Cancer
- Total trihalomethanes – Potential effect: Cancer
These are five of the 28 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).
14 of these contaminants are rated as exceeding EWG Health Guidelines.
Does East Orange have Lead contamination?
Yes, East Orange has lead in its water. The most recent Lead samples collected in 2018 showed concentrations up to 4.1 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 removed.
See the What Can You Do? section below to learn how to filter out contaminants.
Where does East Orange’s water come from?
East Orange’s water comes from the Second River – Passaic River watershed.
All 4 water sources in the Second River – Passaic River watershed are in Impaired or Unknown condition. These include:
- Kill Van Kull West
- Passaic River (Lower)
- Second River
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 East Orange’s water.
What Can You Do?
Information about water quality in East Orange 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 85% of contaminants in your drinking water.
- This includes: Arsenic, Haloacetic acids, and Xylenes.
- Berkey filters can also remove up to 99.99% of Lead in East Orange water.
- Brita can filter 16 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 24 of the 28 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:
- Arsenic
- Barium
- Chloroform
- Fluoride
- Haloacetic acids
- Hexavalent chromium
- Nitrate
- Strontium
- Toluene
- Total trihalomethanes – byproduct of chlorination*
- Xylenes
*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://eastorange-nj.gov/ to find contact information for your local officials.