Lakewood, California
What is the Water Quality in Lakewood, California?
Compared to other US cities, Lakewood water quality ranks in the high-middle range for contamination excluding Lead.
Most of their 29 contaminants have cancer-causing attributes.
- Arsenic is at extremely high levels: 1,120x health guidelines.
- Haloacetic acids (HAA5) are at extremely high levels: 59x health guidelines.
- Haloacetic acids (HAA9) are at extremely high levels: 219x health guidelines.
- These are both byproducts of the chlorine treatment process most water supplies go through.
Let’s look closer at what’s in Lakewood water.
What’s in Lakewood water?
Here are the top 5 chemical compounds in Lakewood water and what health issues they can potentially cause:
- Arsenic – 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 29 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).
16 of these contaminants are rated as exceeding EWG Health Guidelines.
Does Lakewood water have Lead contamination?
No, Lakewood does not currently have lead in its water. The most recent Lead samples collected from 2018 through 2020 showed concentrations of 0.0 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 removed.
See the What Can You Do? section below to learn how to filter out contaminants.
Where does Lakewood’s water come from?
Lakewood’s water comes from the Alamitos Bay watershed.
All 4 EPA assessed water sources in the Alamitos Bay watershed are in Impaired or Unknown condition. These include:
- Alamitos Bay – Impaired
- Colorado Lagoon – Impaired
- Los Cerritos Channel – Impaired
- Los Cerritos Estuary – Unknown
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 Lakewood’s water.
What Can You Do?
Information about water quality in Lakewood 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 some 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 the majority of contaminants in Lakewood’s drinking water. (Berkey Light and Travel Berkey are the only types available in California.)
- Berkey filters can also remove up to 99.99% of Lead in Lakewood water.
- Brita can filter 13 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 26 of the 29 contaminants, consider a Reverse Osmosis water filtration system for your house.
- These are more expensive than pitchers to purchase, but can be more effective.
- They have the benefit of filtering out heavy hitters like:
- 1,4-Dioxane – Eye and respiratory tract irritant
- Arsenic – health risks
- Barium – health risks in water
- Bromodichloromethane – health risks in drinking water
- Bromoform
- Chloroform – side effects
- Chromium (total)
- Dibromoacetic acid
- Dibromochloromethane
- Fluoride
- Haloacetic acids – chlorination byproduct*
- Hexavalent chromium – health effects
- Molybdenum
- Nitrate
- Nitrite
- Strontium
- Total trihalomethanes – byproduct of chlorination*
- Trichloroacetic acid
- Uranium
*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.lakewoodcity.org/ to find contact information for your local officials.