Peabody, Massachusetts

What is the Water Quality in Peabody, Massachusetts?

[Updated: June 13, 2023]

Compared to other US cities, Peabody water quality ranks in the high range for contamination excluding Lead.

Most of their 29 contaminants have cancer-causing attributes.

• Chloroform is at very high levels: 55x health guidelines.
• Haloacetic acids (HAA5) are at extremely high levels: 216x health guidelines.
• Haloacetic acids (HAA9) are at extremely high levels: 533x health guidelines.
  • These are both byproducts of the chlorine treatment process most water supplies go through.

Let’s look closer at what’s in Peabody water.

What’s in Peabody water?

Here are the top 6 chemical compounds in your water and what health issues they can potentially cause:

1. Arsenic – Potential effect: Cancer
2. Bromodichloromethane – Potential effect: Cancer
3. Chloroform – Potential effect: Cancer
4. Hexavalent Chromium – Potential effect: Cancer
5. Haloacetic acids (HAA5) – Potential effect: Cancer
6. Total trihalomethanes – Potential effect: Cancer

These are six of the 29 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).

12 of these contaminants are rated as exceeding EWG Health Guidelines.

Does Peabody have Lead contamination?

Yes, Peabody has lead in its water. The most recent Lead samples collected in 2018 showed concentrations up to 3.0 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 Peabody’s water come from?

Peabody’s water comes from the North River – Frontal Massachusetts Bay.

All 26 water sources in the North River – Frontal Massachusetts Bay watershed are in Impaired or Unknown condition. These include:

• Bass River
• Beaver Brook
• Beverly Harbor
• Cedar Pond
• Crane Brook
• Crane River
• Forest River
• Goldthwait Brook
• Marblehead Harbor
• North River
• Porter River
• Proctor brook
• Salem Harbor
• Salem Sound
• Spring Pond
• Waters River

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 Peabody’s water.

Conclusion – What Can You Do?

Information about water quality in Peabody can be surprising and downright scary.

But there are things you can do in your home to clean up your water.

1. Test Your Water using Varify Home Test Kits or similar.
2. 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 filter out even more contaminants, consider a Reverse Osmosis water filtration system.
  • These are typically more expensive than pitchers to purchase, but can be more effective.
  • They have the benefit of filtering out heavy hitters like:
    • Arsenic
    • Barium
    • Chromium (hexavalent)
    • Cyanide
    • Fluoride
    • Haloacetic acids – byproduct of chlorination
    • Nitrate
    • Nitrite
    • Perchlorate
    • Selenium
    • Strontium
  • Our recommendation: APEC Reverse Osmosis Systems

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://peabody-ma.gov/ to find contact information for your local officials.

Water Quality in Other Massachusetts Cities

Massachusetts Water Quality Page