Mission Viejo, California
Water Quality in Mission Viejo, California
What is the water quality in Mission Viejo?
Compared to other US cities over 50,000, Mission Viejo water quality ranks in the low-mid range for contamination excluding Lead.
Most of their 21 contaminants have cancer-causing attributes. Chloroform is at very high levels: 28x health guidelines.
Let’s look closer at what’s in Mission Viejo water.
What’s in Mission Viejo water?
Here are the top 5 chemical compounds in your water and what health issues they can potentially cause:
- Arsenic – Potential effect: Cancer
- Chloroform – Potential effect: Cancer
- Haloacetic acids – Potential effect: Cancer
- Radium – Potential effect: Cancer
- Total trihalomethanes – Potential effect: Cancer
These are five of the 21 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).
11 of these contaminants are rated as exceeding EWG Health Guidelines.
Does Mission Viejo have Lead contamination?
Yes, Mission Viejo has lead in its water. The most recent Lead samples collected from 2015 through 2017 showed concentrations up to 2.3 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 Mission Viejo’s water come from?
Mission Viejo’s water comes from the Arroyo Trabuco watershed.
7 of the 8 EPA assessed water sources in the Arroyo Trabuco watershed are in Impaired or Unknown condition. These include:
- Arroyo Trabuco Creek – three segments
- Holy Jim Canyon Creek
- Oso Creek – two segments
- Tijeras Canyon
Ideally, a water source would be rated in Good condition. Falls Creek is 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 Mission Viejo’s water.
Conclusion – What Can You Do?
Information about water quality in Mission Viejo 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 80% 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 Mission Viejo water.
- Brita can filter 11 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 18 of the 21 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:
- Aluminum
- Arsenic – health risks
- Barium – health risks in water
- Bromate
- Bromochloromethane
- Bromodichloromethane – health risks in drinking water
- Bromoform
- Chloroform – side effects
- Chromium (total)
- Dibromoacetic acid
- Dibromochloromethane
- Dichloroacetic acid
- Fluoride
- Haloacetic acids – chlorination byproduct*
- Hexavalent chromium – health effects
- Molybdenum
- Monobromoacetic acid
- Monochloroacetic acid
- Nitrate
- Nitrite
- Radium
- Selenium – health risks
- Strontium
- Strontium-90
- 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://cityofmissionviejo.org/ to find contact information for your local officials.