Flagstaff, Arizona
Water Quality in Flagstaff, Arizona
Watershed: Upper Rio de Flag
What is the water quality like in Flagstaff, AZ?
Let’s dive deeper into what’s in Flagstaff water.
What’s in your water?
Here are the top 6 chemical compounds in your water and what health issues they can potentially cause:
- Arsenic – Potential effect: Cancer
- Haloacetic acids – Potential effect: Cancer
- Hexavalent Chromium – Potential effect: Cancer
- Radium – Potential effect: Cancer
- Total trihalomethanes – Potential effect: Cancer
- Uranium – Potential effect: Cancer
These are six of the 16 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).
8 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 Flagstaff’s water come from?
Flagstaff’s water comes from the Upper Rio de Flag watershed.
There are no EPA assessed water sources in the Upper Rio de Flag watershed.
Ideally, a water source would be Assessed, Known, and rated 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 Flagstaff’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 11 of the 16 contaminants in your drinking water.
- Berkey filters can also remove up to 99.99% of Lead in Flagstaff water.
- Brita can filter 3 (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 14 of the 16 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:
- 1,4-Dioxane – irritant of the eyes and respiratory tract
- Arsenic – health risks
- Barium – health risks
- Chlorite
- Chromium (total)
- Fluoride
- Haloacetic acids – chlorination byproduct*
- Hexavalent chromium
- Nitrate
- Nitrite
- Radium
- Strontium
- Total trihalomethanes – byproduct of chlorination*
- 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: http://www.flagstaff.az.gov/Directory.aspx to find contact information for your local officials.