Redondo Beach, California

What is the Water Quality in Redondo Beach, California?

[Updated: June 9, 2023]

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

Most of their 32 contaminants have cancer-causing attributes.

• Arsenic is at very high levels: 42x health guidelines.
• Haloacetic acids (HAA5) are at extremely high levels: 131x health guidelines.
• Haloacetic acids (HAA9) are at extremely high levels: 249x health guidelines.
  • These are both byproducts of the chlorine treatment process most water supplies go through.
• Uranium is at very high levels: 12x health guidelines.

Let’s look closer at what’s in Redondo Beach water.

What Else Is In Redondo Beach water?

Here are the top 5 chemical compounds in your water and what health issues they can potentially cause:

1. Chloroform – Potential effect: Cancer
2. Haloacetic acids (HAA5) – Potential effect: Cancer
3. Radium – Potential effect: Cancer
4. Total trihalomethanes – Potential effect: Cancer
5. Uranium – Potential effect: Cancer

These are five of the 32 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).

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

Does Redondo Beach have Lead contamination?

No, Redondo Beach 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 removed.

See the What Can You Do? section below to learn how to filter out contaminants.

Where does Redondo Beach’s water come from?

Redondo Beach’s water comes from the Manhattan Beach – Frontal Santa Monica Bay watershed.

19 of the 21 water sources in the Manhattan Beach – Frontal Santa Monica Bay watershed are in Impaired or Unknown condition. These include:

• Abalone Cove Beach
• Bluff Cove Beach
• Dockweiler Beach
• Flat Rock Point Beach Area
• Inspiration Point Beach
• Long Point Beach
• Lunada Bay Beach
• Malaga Cove Beach
• Palo Verde Shoreline Park Beach
• Point Fermin Park Beach
• Point Vicente Beach
• Portuguese Bend Beach
• Redondo Beach
• Resort Point Beach
• Royal Palms Beach
• Torrance Beach
• Whites Point Beach

Ideally, a water source would be rated in Good condition. Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach are 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 Redondo Beach’s water.

What Can You Do?

Information about water quality in Redondo Beach 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 filter out even more contaminants, consider a Reverse Osmosis water filtration system for your whole house.
  • These are more expensive than pitchers to purchase, but can be more effective.
  • They have the benefit of filtering out heavy hitters like:
    • Barium
    • Bromoform
    • Chloroform
    • Fluoride
    • Haloacetic acids – chlorination byproduct*
    • Hexavalent chromium
    • Monochloroacetic acid
    • Nitrate
    • Selenium
    • 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: https://www.redondo.org/ to find contact information for your local officials.

Water Quality in Other California Cities

California Water Quality Page