Palm Coast, Florida

What is the Water Quality in Palm Coast, Florida?

[Updated: June 9, 2023]

Compared to other US cities, Palm Coast water quality ranks in the low-middle range for contamination excluding Lead.

Most of their 16 contaminants have cancer-causing attributes.

• Arsenic is at high levels: 7.1x health guidelines.
• Haloacetic acids (HAA5) are at extremely high levels: 151x health guidelines.
• Haloacetic acids (HAA9) are at extremely high levels: 238x health guidelines.
  • These are both byproducts of the chlorine treatment process most water supplies go through.

Let’s look closer at what’s in Palm Coast water.

What’s in Palm Coast water?

Here are the top 4 chemical compounds in Palm Beach’s water and what health issues they can potentially cause:

1. Arsenic – Potential effect: Cancer
2. Haloacetic acids – Potential effect: Cancer
3. Hexavalent Chromium – Potential effect: Cancer
4. Total trihalomethanes – Potential effect: Cancer

These are four of the 16 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).

These 5 contaminants are rated as exceeding EWG Health Guidelines.

Does Palm Coast have Lead contamination?

Yes, Palm Coast has lead in its water. The most recent Lead samples collected in 2017 showed concentrations up to 12.8 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 Palm Coast’s water come from?

Palm Coast’s water comes from the Graham Swamp watershed.

The only EPA assessed water source in the Graham Swamp watershed is in Impaired condition. This is the St. Joe Canal.

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:

1. Drinking Water
2. Aquatic Life
3. Fish and Shellfish Consumption
4. Recreation

Learn more from How’s My Waterway

See below for what you can do to improve Palm Coast’s water.

Conclusion – What Can You Do?

Information about water quality in Palm Coast 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:

• Use Activated Carbon filters to remove most contaminants in your drinking water.
  • Faucet-mount filters work better than pitchers.
  • PUR and Brita are low-cost and effective.

• To potentially filter out even more contaminants, consider a Reverse Osmosis water filtration system for your house.
  • These are more expensive than pitchers to purchase, but are more effective.
  • They have the benefit of filtering out heavy hitters like:
    • Fluoride
    • Haloacetic acids – chlorination byproduct*
    • Hexavalent chromium – health effects
    • Nitrate
    • Strontium
    • Total trihalomethanes – byproduct of chlorination*
  • Our recommendation: APEC Reverse Osmosis Systems

*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.palmcoastgov.com/ to find contact information for your local officials.

Water Quality in Other Florida Cities

Florida Water Quality Page