Greensboro, North Carolina
Water Quality in Greensboro, North Carolina
Watershed: North Buffalo Creek
What is the water quality like in Greensboro, NC?
Let’s dive deeper into what’s in Greensboro water.
What’s in Greensboro water?
Here are the top 5 chemical compounds in your 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 17 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).
11 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 Greensboro’s water come from?
Greensboro’s water comes from the North Buffalo Creek watershed.
All 9 EPA assessed water sources in the North Buffalo Creek watershed are in Impaired or Unknown condition. These include:
- North Buffalo Creek – 3 segments
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 Greensboro’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 16 of the 17 contaminants in your drinking water.
- Berkey filters can also remove up to 99.99% of Lead in Greensboro water.
- Brita can filter 12 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 15 of the 17 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
- Chloroform – side effects
- Dibromoacetic acid
- Dibromochloromethane
- Dichloroacetic acid
- Fluoride
- Haloacetic acids – chlorination byproduct*
- Hexavalent chromium – health effects
- Monobromoacetic acid
- Monochloroacetic acid
- PFHXS – products containing the compound are either banned or being phased out. However, the chemical is a persistent organic pollutant that is bioaccumulative (we absorb it faster than we can get rid of it).
- PFOS – global pollutant. Was the key ingredient in Scotchgard fabric protector from 3M. Increased risk of preeclampsia in pregnant women. Increased risk of altered thyroid hormone levels. [Source]
- Strontium
- Total trihalomethanes – byproduct of chlorination*
- Trichloroacetic acid
*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.greensboro-nc.gov/ to find contact information for your local officials.