Minnetonka, Minnesota
What is the Water Quality in Minnetonka, Minnesota?
Compared to other US cities, Minnetonka water quality ranks in the middle range for contamination excluding Lead.
Most of their 23 contaminants have cancer-causing attributes.
- Radium is at very high levels: 62x health guidelines.
Let’s look closer at what’s in Minnetonka water.
What’s in Minnetonka 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
- Radium – Potential effect: Cancer
These are five of the 23 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).
8 of these contaminants are rated as exceeding EWG Health Guidelines.
Does Minnetonka have Lead contamination?
Yes, Minnetonka has lead in its water. The most recent Lead samples collected from 2014 through 2016 showed concentrations up to 1.0 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 Minnetonka’s water come from?
Minnetonka’s water comes from the Minnehaha Creek watershed.
All 43 water sources in the Minnehaha Creek watershed are in Impaired or Unknown condition. These include:
- Bass
- Brownie
- Cedar
- Diamond
- Edina Mill Pond
- Hannan
- Harriet
- Hiawatha
- Lake of the Isles
- Minnehaha Creek
- Minnetonka – Grays Bay
- Sanctuary Marsh
- Windsor
- Wolfe Park
Ideally, a water source would be Known and rated in Good condition.
Learn more from How’s My Waterway
See below for what you can do to improve Minnetonka’s water.
What Can You Do?
Information about water quality in Minnetonka 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 water filters with activated carbon to filter out at least 75% of contaminants in your drinking water.
- Berkey filters can also remove up to 99.99% of Lead in Minnetonka water.
- Brita can filter 12 of the 23 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 20 of the 23 contaminants (86.95%), 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
- Chloroform
- Chromium (hexavalent)
- Fluoride
- Nitrate
- 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: https://www.minnetonkamn.gov/government to find contact information for your local officials.