Menifee, California
Water Quality in Menifee, California
What is the water quality in Menifee?
Compared to other US cities over 50,000, Menifee water quality ranks in the mid range for contamination excluding Lead.
Most of their 33 contaminants have cancer-causing attributes. Arsenic is at extremely high levels: 384x health guidelines.
Menifee water also has PFOA in its water. PFOA is considered a “forever chemical” with dangerous health effects.
Let’s look closer at what’s in Menifee water.
What’s in Menifee water?
Here are the top 7 chemical compounds in your water and what health issues they can potentially cause:
- Arsenic – Potential effect: Cancer
- Bromodichloromethane – Potential effect: Cancer
- Chloroform – Potential effect: Cancer
- Haloacetic acids – Potential effect: Cancer
- Hexavalent Chromium – Potential effect: Cancer
- Nitrate – Potential effect: Cancer
- Total trihalomethanes – Potential effect: Cancer
These are seven of the 33 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).
15 of these contaminants are rated as exceeding EWG Health Guidelines.
Does Menifee have Lead contamination?
No, Menifee does not currently appear to have lead in its water. The most recent Lead samples collected from 2014 through 2016 showed concentrations of 0.0 parts per billion.
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 Menifee’s water come from?
Menifee’s water comes from the San Jacinto Valley watershed.
The single EPA assessed water source in the San Jacinto Valley watershed servicing Menifee is Good condition. This is Hemet Channel.
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 Menifee’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 at least 85% of contaminants in your 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 Menifee water.
- Brita can filter 15 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 30 of the 33 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
- Aluminum
- Arsenic – health risks
- Barium – health risks in water
- Bromodichloromethane – health risks in drinking water
- Bromoform
- Chloroform – side effects
- Dibromoacetic acid
- Dibromochloromethane
- Dichloroacetic acid
- Fluoride
- Haloacetic acids – chlorination byproduct*
- Hexavalent chromium – health effects
- Molybdenum
- Monobromoacetic acid
- Monochloroacetic acid
- 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: http://www.cityofmenifee.us/27/Government to find contact information for your local officials.