Gastonia, North Carolina
What is the Water Quality in Gastonia, North Carolina?
[Updated: June 13, 2023]
Compared to other US cities, Gastonia water quality ranks in the middle range for contamination excluding Lead.
Most of their 19 contaminants have cancer-causing attributes.
- Chloroform is at very high levels: 60x health guidelines.
- Haloacetic acids (HAA5) are at extremely high levels: 253x health guidelines.
- Haloacetic acids (HAA9) are at extremely high levels: 662x health guidelines.
- These are both byproducts of the chlorine treatment process most water supplies go through.
Let’s look closer at what’s in Gastonia water.
What’s in Gastonia water?
Here are the top 5 chemical compounds in Gastonia water and what health issues they can potentially cause:
- Bromodichloromethane – Potential effect: Cancer
- Chloroform – Potential effect: Cancer
- Haloacetic acids – Potential effect: Cancer
- Hexavalent Chromium – Potential effect: Cancer
- Total trihalomethanes – Potential effect: Cancer
These are five of the 19 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).
11 of these contaminants are rated as exceeding EWG Health Guidelines.
Does Gastonia water have Lead contamination?
No, Gastonia does not currently have lead in its water. The most recent Lead samples collected from 2017 through 2019 showed concentrations of 0.0 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 Gastonia’s water come from?
Gastonia’s water comes from the Catawba Creek watershed.
All 4 EPA assessed water sources in the Catawba Creek watershed are in Impaired condition. These are all sections of Catawba Creek itself and the Catawba 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 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 Gastonia’s water.
Conclusion – What Can You Do?
Information about water quality in Gastonia can be surprising.
But there are things you can do in your home to clean up your water.
- Test Your Water using Varify Home Test Kits or similar.
- To Remove Lead and Other Contaminants In Your Home:
- Use Activated Carbon filters to remove most contaminants in your drinking water.
- To filter out even more 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:
- Bromodichloromethane – health risks in drinking water
- Bromoform
- Chloroform – side effects
- Dibromoacetic acid
- Dibromochloromethane
- Fluoride
- Haloacetic acids – chlorination byproduct*
- Hexavalent chromium – health effects
- Strontium
- Total trihalomethanes – byproduct of chlorination*
- Trichloroacetic acid
- Our recommendation: APEC Reverse Osmosis Systems
*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.cityofgastonia.com/ to find contact information for your local officials.