Lacey, Washington
What is the Water Quality in Lacey, Washington?
Compared to other US cities, Lacey water quality ranks in the lower-middle range for contamination excluding Lead.
Most of their 19 contaminants have cancer-causing attributes.
- Chloroform is at high levels: 8x health guidelines.
Let’s look closer at what’s in Lacey water.
What’s in Lacey 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
- Hexavalent Chromium – Potential effect: Cancer
- Haloacetic acids (HAA5) – Potential effect: Cancer
- Total trihalomethanes – Potential effect: Cancer
These are five of the 19 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).
12 of these contaminants are rated as exceeding EWG Health Guidelines.
Does Lacey have Lead contamination?
Yes, Lacey has lead in its water. The most recent Lead samples collected in 2016 showed concentrations up to 6.0 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 filtered out.
See the What Can You Do? section below to learn how to filter out contaminants.
Where does Lacey’s water come from?
Lacey’s water comes from the Woodland Creek – Frontal Henderson Inlet watershed.
57 of the 64 water sources in the Woodland Creek – Frontal Henderson Inlet watershed are in Impaired or Unknown condition. These include:
- College Creek – Multiple sections
- Dobbs Creek – Multiple sections
- Eagle Creek
- Fleming Creek
- Fox Creek
- Henderson Inlet – Multiple sections
- Hicks Lake
- Jorgenson Creek
- Lois Lake
- Long Lake
- Myer Creek
- Palm Creek
- Pattison Lake
- Sleepy Creek
- Woodard Creek
- Woodland Creek
Ideally, a water source would be rated in Good condition. Seven water sources are currently in good condition. These include:
- Sections of Henderson Inlet
- Tributaries of Dobbs Creek
Learn more from How’s My Waterway
See below for what you can do to improve Lacey’s water.
What Can You Do?
Information about water quality in Lacey 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 your drinking water.
- Berkey filters can also remove up to 99.99% of Lead in Lacey water.
- Brita can filter 10 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 16 of the 19 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:
- 1,4-Dioxane
- Chromium (hexavalent)
- Chromium (total)
- Nitrate
- Nitrite
- Radium
- Strontium
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: http://www.ci.lacey.wa.us/City-Government to find contact information for your local officials.