Phoenix, Arizona
Water Quality in Phoenix, Arizona
Watershed: City of Phoenix – Salt River (surface water)
What is the water quality like in Phoenix, AZ?
Let’s dive deeper into what’s in Phoenix water.
What’s in Phoenix water?
Here are the top 5 chemical compounds in your water and what health issues they can potentially cause:
- Arsenic – Potential effect: Cancer
- Chlorite – Potential effect: Change in blood chemistry
- Haloacetic acids – Potential effect: Cancer
- Hexavalent Chromium – Potential effect: Cancer
- Total trihalomethanes – Potential effect: Cancer
These are five of the 18 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).
8 of these contaminants are rated as exceeding EWG Health Guidelines.
See the What Can You Do? section below for all of the contaminants you can filter out and how to do it.
Where does Phoenix’s water come from?
Phoenix’s water comes from the City of Phoenix – Salt River watershed.
3 of the 4 EPA assessed water sources in the City of Phoenix – Salt River watershed are in Unknown condition. These include:
- Encanto Park Lake
- Salt River – From Tempe Town Lake to Tempe Town Lake Dam
- Tempe Town Lake
Ideally, a water source would be rated in Good condition. Salt River from 23rd Avenue to Gila River 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 Phoenix’s water.
Conclusion – What Can You Do?
Information about water quality 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.
- Use Berkey filters with activated carbon to filter out 14 of the 18 contaminants in your drinking water.
- Berkey filters can also remove up to 99.99% of Lead in Phoenix water.
- Brita can filter 6 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 18 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:
- 2,4-D – herbicide/defoliant (gets rid of leaves). Cancer risks. Sterility risks due to abnormally shaped sperm cells.
- Barium – In low doses, barium ions act as a muscle stimulant, and higher doses affect the nervous system, causing cardiac irregularities, tremors, weakness, anxiety, shortness of breath, and paralysis.
- Bromate
- Chlorite
- Chromium (total)
- Fluoride
- Haloacetic acids – chlorination byproduct*
- Hexavalent chromium – health effects
- Molybdenum
- Nitrate
- Radium
- Strontium
- Total trihalomethanes – byproduct of chlorination*
- Uranium
- Xylenes – Hearing disorders have been linked to xylene exposure.
*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://phoenix.gov/ to find contact information for your local officials.