Grand Island, Nebraska

Grand Island, Nebraska Grand Island, Nebraska

What is the Water Quality in Grand Island, Nebraska?

Compared to other US cities, Grand Island water quality ranks in the high-mid range for contamination excluding Lead.

Most of their 29 contaminants have cancer-causing attributes.

  • Radium is at particularly high levels: 37x health guidelines.

Let’s look closer at what’s in Grand Island water.

What’s in Grand Island water?

Here are the top 5 chemical compounds in your water and what health issues they can potentially cause:

  1. Bromodichloromethane – Potential effect: Cancer
  2. Hexavalent Chromium – Potential effect: Cancer
  3. Haloacetic acids (HAA5) – Potential effect: Cancer
  4. Total trihalomethanes – Potential effect: Cancer
  5. Radium – Potential effect: Cancer

These are five of the 29 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).

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

Does Grand Island have Lead contamination?

Yes, Grand Island has lead in its water. The most recent Lead samples collected in 2019 showed concentrations up to 2.5 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 Grand Island’s water come from?

Grand Island’s water comes from the Eagles Lake – Wood River watershed.

All 6 water sources in the Eagles Lake – Wood River watershed is are in Impaired or Unknown condition. These include:

  • Wood River
  • Grand Island – L.E. Ray Lake
  • Grand Island – Suchs Lake

Ideally, a water source would be rated in Good condition. See below for what you can do to improve Grand Island’s water.

Learn more from How’s My Waterway here

What Can You Do?

Information about water quality in Grand Island, Nebraska can be surprising.

But there are things you can do in your home to clean up your water.

To Remove Lead and Other Contaminants In Your Home:

There is one solution that beats Brita, PUR, and expensive whole house systems.

  • It costs less per gallon.
  • Needs fewer filter changes.
  • And it doesn’t make your water taste weird.

  • Use Berkey filters with activated carbon to filter out at least 79% of contaminants in Grand Island drinking water.
    • Berkey filters can also remove up to 99.99% of Lead in Grand Island water.
    • Brita can filter 16 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 25 of the 29 contaminants, consider a reverse osmosis water filtration system for your house.
    • 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
      • Atrazine
      • Chlorate
      • Chloroform
      • Chromium (hexavalent)
      • Molybdenum
      • Nitrate
      • Radium
      • Strontium
      • Uranium

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.grand-island.com/government to find contact information for your local officials.

Water Quality in Other Nebraska Cities

Nebraska Water Quality Page

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