Edinburg, Texas
Water Quality in Edinburg, Texas
Watershed: Upper Pilot Channel – Laguna Madre
What is the water quality like in Edinburg, TX?
Let’s dive deeper into what’s in Edinburg water.
What’s in Edinburg water?
Here are the top 5 chemical compounds in your water and what health issues they can potentially cause:
- Arsenic – Potential effect: Cancer
- Bromodichloromethane – Potential effect: Cancer
- Haloacetic acids – Potential effect: Cancer
- Radium – 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.
See the What Can You Do? section below for all of the contaminants you can filter out and how to do it.
Where does Edinburg’s water come from?
Edinburg’s water comes from the Upper Pilot Channel – Laguna Madre watershed.
11 of the 15 EPA assessed water sources in the Upper Pilot Channel – Laguna Madre watershed are in Impaired or Unknown condition. These include:
- Arroyo Colorado Tidal
- Drainage ditches flowing into and above Arroyo Colorado tidal zone
- Drainage ditches flowing into Lower Laguna Madre
- Harding Ranch Drainage Ditch tributary
- Laguna Madre – three segments
Ideally, a water source would be rated in Good condition. Two segments of Laguna Madre and the North Floodway are in Good condition.
Whether a water source is in Impaired or Good condition refers to the quality of these uses:
- Drinking Water
- Aquatic Life
- Fish and Shellfish Consumption
- Recreation
Learn more from How’s My Waterway
See below for what you can do to improve Edinburg’s water.
Conclusion – What Can You Do?
Information about water quality can be surprising.
But there’s no reason to lose hope. There are things you can do in your household as well as things you can do at a community level.
In Your Household:
- Use Berkey filters with activated carbon to filter out 23 of the 28 contaminants in your drinking water.
- Berkey filters can also remove up to 99.99% of Lead in Edinburg water.
- Brita can filter 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 24 of the 28 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:
- Aluminum
- Arsenic – health risks
- Barium – health risks in water
- Bromochloroacetic acid
- Bromodichloromethane – health risks in drinking water
- Bromoform
- Chlorite
- Chloroform – side effects
- Chromium (total)
- Cyanide – exposure limits
- Dibromoacetic acid
- Dibromochloromethane
- Dichloroacetic acid
- Fluoride
- Haloacetic acids – chlorination byproduct*
- Molybdenum
- Monobromoacetic acid
- Nitrate
- Radium
- Selenium – health risks
- Strontium
- Total trihalomethanes – byproduct of chlorination*
- Trichloroacetic acid
- Uranium
*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://cityofedinburg.com/ to find contact information for your local officials.