Florissant, Missouri

What is the Water Quality in Florissant, Missouri?

[Updated: June 13, 2023]

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

Most of their 39 contaminants have cancer-causing attributes.

• Arsenic is at very high levels: 48x health guidelines.
• Chloroform is also at particularly high levels: 57x health guidelines.

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

What’s in Florissant 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. Chloroform – Potential effect: Cancer
3. Hexavalent Chromium – Potential effect: Cancer
4. Haloacetic acids (HAA5) – Potential effect: Cancer
5. Total trihalomethanes – Potential effect: Cancer

These are five of the 39 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).

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

Does Florissant have Lead contamination?

Yes, Florissant has lead in its water. The most recent Lead samples collected in 2019 showed concentrations up to 5.0 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 for all of the contaminants you can filter out and how to do it.

Where does Florissant’s water come from?

Florissant’s water comes from the Coldwater Creek watershed.

The Coldwater Creek watershed is in Impaired condition.

Ideally, a water source would be rated in Good condition. See below for what you can do to improve Florissant’s water at home and in your community.

Learn more from How’s My Waterway here

Conclusion – What Can You Do?

Information about water quality in Florissant 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 home.
  • These are typically more expensive than pitchers to purchase, but may require fewer filter changes over time.
  • They have the benefit of filtering out heavy hitters like:
    • 1,4-Dioxane
    • 2,4-D
    • Arsenic
    • Atrazine
    • Chloroform
    • Chromium (hexavalent)
    • Ethylene dibromide
    • Haloacetic acids
    • Molybdenum
    • Nitrates
    • Selenium
    • Strontium
    • Testosterone
  • Our recommendation: APEC Reverse Osmosis Systems

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.florissantmo.com/ to find contact information for your local officials.

Water Quality in Other Missouri Cities

Missouri Water Quality Page