Orland Park, Illinois
What is the Water Quality in Orland Park, Illinois?
Compared to other US cities, Orland Park water quality ranks in the middle range for contamination excluding Lead.
Most of their 21 contaminants have cancer-causing attributes.
- Chloroform is at extremely high levels: 54x health guidelines.
- Haloacetic acids (HAA5) are at extremely high levels: 190x health guidelines.
- Haloacetic acids (HAA9) are at extremely high levels: 407x health guidelines.
- HAA5 and HAA9 are byproducts of chlorine treatment, a common method of disinfecting water supplies.
Let’s look closer at what’s in Orland Park water.
What’s in Orland Park 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
- Total trihalomethanes – Potential effect: Cancer
These are five of the 21 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).
10 of these contaminants are rated as exceeding EWG Health Guidelines.
Does Orland Park have Lead contamination?
No, Orland Park does not currently have lead in its water. The most recent Lead samples collected from 2015 through 2017 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 filtered out.
See the What Can You Do? section below to learn how to filter out contaminants.
Where does Orland Park’s water come from?
Orland Park’s water comes from the Hickory Creek watershed.
All 7 water sources in the Hickory Creek watershed are in Impaired or Unknown condition. These include:
- Frankfort Tributary
- Hickory Creek – Multiple sections
- Marley Creek
- Michigan Beach Lake
- Sedgewick
Ideally, a water source would be rated in Good condition.
Learn more from How’s My Waterway
See below for what you can do to improve Orland Park’s water.
What Can You Do?
Information about water quality in Orland Park 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 filters with activated carbon to filter out at least 68% of contaminants in your drinking water.
- Berkey filters can also remove up to 99.99% of any Lead in Orland Park water.
- Brita can filter 14 of 21 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 18 of the 21 contaminants in your whole house, consider a Reverse Osmosis water filtration system for your home.
- These are typically more expensive than pitchers to purchase, but can be more effective.
- They have the benefit of filtering out heavy hitters like:
- Androstenedione – Steroid that naturally occurs in humans. Additional outside andro is not seen as beneficial to hormone balancing.
- Bromodichloromethane
- Chloroform
- Chromium (hexavalent)
- Haloacetic acids (HAA5 and HAA9)
- Molybdenum
- Strontium
- Testosterone
- Total trihalomethanes – common byproducts of chlorine treatment linked to cancer.
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://orlandpark.org/government to find contact information for your local officials.