Kentwood, Michigan

What is the Water Quality in Kentwood, Michigan?

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

Most of their 19 contaminants have cancer-causing attributes.

• PFOS and PFOA are at extremely high levels: 143x health guidelines.

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

What’s in Kentwood water?

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

1. Chloroform – Potential effect: Cancer
2. Hexavalent Chromium – Potential effect: Cancer
3. Haloacetic acids (HAA5) – Potential effect: Cancer
4. PFOS and PFOA – Potential effect: To be determined
5. Total trihalomethanes – Potential effect: Cancer

These are five of the 19 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).

8 of the total contaminants are rated as exceeding EWG Health Guidelines.

Does Kentwood have Lead contamination?

Yes, Kentwood has lead in its water. The most recent Lead samples collected from 2014 through 2016 showed concentrations up to 3.1 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 Kentwood’s water come from?

Kentwood’s water comes from the Buck Creek watershed.

Two of the three water sources in the Buck Creek watershed are in Impaired condition.

Ideally, all watershed water sources would be rated in Good condition.

Learn more from How’s My Waterway

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

What Can You Do?

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

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 74% of the contaminants in your drinking water.
  • Berkey filters can also remove up to 99.99% of Lead in Kentwood water.
  • Berkey filters will also remove PFOS and PFOA
  • Brita can filter 9 contaminants, PFOS, PFOA, 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 16 of the 19 contaminants in your whole house, consider a reverse osmosis water filtration system.
  • These are typically more expensive than pitchers to purchase, but can be much more effective.
  • They have the benefit of filtering out heavy hitters like:
    • Androstenedione
    • Barium
    • Chromium (hexavalent)
    • Haloacetic acids (HAA5)
    • Molybdenum
    • Nitrate
    • PFOA
    • PFOS
    • Strontium
    • Total Trihalomethanes

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://kentwood.us/ to find contact information for your local officials.

Water Quality in Other Michigan Cities

Michigan Water Quality Page