Hendersonville, Tennessee

What is the Water Quality in Hendersonville, Tennessee?

[Update: June 12, 2023]

Compared to other US cities, Hendersonville water quality ranks in the lower-middle range for contamination excluding Lead.

Most of their 15 contaminants have cancer-causing attributes.

• Arsenic is at extremely high levels: 95x health guidelines.
• Haloacetic acids (HAA5) are at extremely high levels: 180x health guidelines.
• Haloacetic acids (HAA9) are at extremely high levels: 399x health guidelines.
  • HAA5 and HAA9 are byproducts of chlorine treatment, a common method of disinfecting water supplies.

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

What’s in Hendersonville 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 and HAA9) – Potential effect: Cancer
5. Total trihalomethanes – Potential effect: Cancer

These are five of the 15 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).

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

Does Hendersonville have Lead contamination?

Yes, Hendersonville has lead in its water. The most recent Lead samples collected in 2018 showed concentrations up to 0.8 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 filtered out.

See the What Can You Do? section below to learn how to filter out contaminants.

Where does Hendersonville’s water come from?

Hendersonville’s water comes from the Drakes Creek watershed.

5 of the 9 assessed water sources in the Drakes Creek watershed are in Impaired or Unknown condition. These include:

• Hogan Branch
• Miscellaneous tributaries to Drakes Creek
• Unnamed tributaries to Drakes Creek

Ideally, a water source would be rated in Good condition. Drakes Creek, Indian Trail Creek, and Old Hickory Reservoir are all in Good condition.

Learn more from How’s My Waterway

See below for what you can do to improve Hendersonville’s water.

Conclusion – What Can You Do?

Information about water quality in Hendersonville can be surprising and downright scary.

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 house.
  • These are typically more expensive than pitchers to purchase, but are much more effective.
  • They have the benefit of filtering out heavy hitters like:
    • Arsenic
    • Barium
    • Chloroform
    • Chromium (hexavalent)
    • Fluoride
    • Haloacetic acids (HAA5 and HAA9)
    • Nitrate
    • Strontium
    • Total trihalomethanes
  • 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.hvilletn.org/ to find contact information for your local officials.

Water Quality in Other Tennessee Cities

Tennessee Water Quality Page