Renton, Washington
Water Quality in Renton, Washington
Watershed: Green River
What is the water quality like in Renton, WA?
Let’s dive deeper into what’s in Renton water.
What’s in Renton 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
- Haloacetic acids – Potential effect: Cancer
- Hexavalent Chromium – Potential effect: Cancer
- Total trihalomethanes – Potential effect: Cancer
These are five of the 16 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).
10 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 Renton’s water come from?
Renton’s water comes from the Green River watershed.
All 68 EPA assessed water sources in the Green River watershed are in Impaired or Unknown condition. These include:
- Angle Lake
- Black River
- Duwamish River – 2 segments
- Duwamish Waterway – 41 segments
- Fenwick Lake
- Green River – 3 segments
- Harrison Creek
- Mill Creek
- Mullen Slough
- Panther Lake
- Rolling Hills Creek
- Springbrook (Mill) Creek – 3 segments
- Star Lake
- 10 Unnamed Creeks
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:
- 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 Renton’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.
In Your Household:
- Use Berkey filters with activated carbon to filter out 13 of the 16 contaminants in your drinking water.
- Berkey filters can also remove up to 99.99% of Lead in Renton water.
- Brita can filter 9 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 14 of the 16 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:
- Bromochloroacetic acid
- Bromodichloromethane – health risks in drinking water
- Bromoform
- Chloroform – side effects
- Chromium (total)
- Dibromochloromethane
- Dichloroacetic acid
- Fluoride
- Haloacetic acids – chlorination byproduct*
- Hexavalent chromium – health effects
- Nitrate
- Strontium
- Total trihalomethanes – byproduct of chlorination*
- Trichloroacetic acid
*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.
Renton’s water contains Chlorate, a chemical that affects the thyroid and cannot be filtered out at a household level. If you have a thyroid condition or know someone who does, consider contacting your local officials with the information below.
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.rentonwa.gov/ to find contact information for your local officials.