Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Water Quality in Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Watershed: North River – Frontal Massachusetts Bay
What is the water quality like in Fort Lauderdale, FL?
Let’s dive deeper into what’s in Fort Lauderdale water.
What’s in Fort Lauderdale water?
Here are the top 4 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
- Total trihalomethanes – Potential effect: Cancer
These are four of the 12 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).
These 4 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 Fort Lauderdale’s water come from?
Fort Lauderdale’s water comes from the North River – Frontal Massachusetts Bay watershed.
75 of the 83 EPA assessed water sources in the North River – Frontal Massachusetts Bay watershed are in Impaired or Unknown condition. These include:
- Acme
- Atlantic Ocean (Lake Worth Inlet)
- Boynton Canal
- Clear Lake
- Dania Cutoff Canal
- Dubois Park
- George English Park
- Hillsboro Canal
- Holloway Canal
- Intracoastal Waterway – 5 segments
- Jupiter Farms
- Jupiter Inlet
- Lake Clarke, Lake Ida, Lake Melva, Lake Osborne
- Lake Worth Lagoon – 3 segments
- Las Olas Isles Finger Canal System
- Margate Lakes
- New River
- North Fork Loxa hatchee River
- North New River Canal
- Pal Mar
- Palm Beach Stations
- Phil Foster Park
- Pine Lake
- Pompano Canal
- Snake Creek Canal
- South New River Canal
Ideally, a water source would be rated in Good condition. Hillsboro Inlet Park, Lake Mangonia, Northeast 16th Street Pompano, Oakland Park Boulevard, Peanut Island, Sandoway Park – Delray Beach, and the Spanish River 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 Fort Lauderdale’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 9 of the 12 contaminants in your drinking water.
- Berkey filters can also remove up to 99.99% of Lead in Fort Lauderdale water.
- Brita can filter 2 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 9 of the 12 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 – health risks
- Barium – health risks in water
- Fluoride
- Haloacetic acids – chlorination byproduct*
- Hexavalent chromium – health effects
- Nitrate
- Nitrite
- Strontium
- Total trihalomethanes – byproduct of chlorination*
*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://www.fortlauderdale.gov/government to find contact information for your local officials.