North Port, Florida
What is the Water Quality in North Port, Florida?
[Updated January 25, 2023]
Compared to other US cities, North Port water quality ranks in the lower-middle range for contamination excluding Lead.
Most of their 19 contaminants have cancer-causing attributes.
- Cadmium is at high levels: 11x health guidelines.
- Haloacetic acids (HAA5) are at extremely high levels: 297x health guidelines.
- Haloacetic acids (HAA9) are at extremely high levels: 640x health guidelines.
- These are both byproducts of the chlorine treatment process most water supplies go through.
Let’s look closer at what’s in North Port water.
What’s in North Port water?
Here are the top 5 chemical compounds in your water and what health issues they can potentially cause:
- Cadmium – Potential effect: Harm to the kidney
- Chlorate – Potential effect: Harm to the thyroid
- Haloacetic acids (HAA5) – Potential effect: Cancer
- Radium – Potential effect: Cancer
- Total trihalomethanes – Potential effect: Cancer
These are five of the 19 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).
These 6 contaminants are rated as exceeding EWG Health Guidelines.
Does North Port have Lead contamination?
Yes, North Port has lead in its water. The most recent Lead samples collected in 2017 showed concentrations up to 2.0 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 North Port’s water come from?
North Port’s water comes from the West Cocoplum Waterway watershed.
All 4 EPA assessed water sources in the West Cocoplum Waterway watershed are in Impaired or Unknown condition. These include:
- Big Slough Canal – Impaired
- Blueridge Waterway – Unknown
- Cocoplum Waterway – Impaired
- Unnamed canal system – 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 North Port’s water.
What Can You Do?
Information about water quality in North Port 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 at least 82% of contaminants in your drinking water.
- Berkey filters can also remove up to 99.99% of Lead in North Port water.
- Brita can filter 5 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 in your whole house, consider a Reverse Osmosis water filtration system for your home.
- These are more expensive than pitchers to purchase, but can be more effective.
- They have the benefit of filtering out heavy hitters like:
- Aluminum
- Barium – health risks
- Cadmium – safety
- Dalapon – herbicide used on sugarcane and sugar beets.
- Fluoride
- Haloacetic acids – chlorination byproduct*
- Hexavalent chromium
- Nitrate
- Nitrite
- Radium
- Silver
- Strontium
- Total trihalomethanes – byproduct of chlorination*
*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.cityofnorthport.com/government to find contact information for your local officials.