Richmond, California
Water Quality in Richmond, California
Watershed: Cerrito Creek – Frontal San Francisco Bay Estuaries
What is the water quality like in Richmond, CA?
Let’s dive deeper into what’s in Richmond water.
What’s in Richmond water?
Here are the top 2 chemical compounds in your water and what health issues they can potentially cause:
- Haloacetic acids – Potential effect: Cancer
- Total trihalomethanes – Potential effect: Cancer
These are five of the 20 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).
These 2 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 Richmond’s water come from?
Richmond’s water comes from the Cerrito Creek – Frontal San Francisco Bay Estuaries watershed.
8 of the 9 EPA assessed water sources in the Cerrito Creek – Frontal San Francisco Bay Estuaries watershed are in Impaired or Unknown condition. These include:
- Baxter Creek
- Berkeley Marina
- Cerrito Creek
- Codornices Creek
- Richmond Marina
- Stege Marsh
- Strawberry Creek
- Temescal Creek
Ideally, a water source would be rated in Good condition. Lake Temescal 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 Richmond’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 16 of the 20 contaminants in your drinking water. (Berkey Light and Travel Berkey are the only types available in California.)
- Berkey filters can also remove up to 99.99% of Lead in Richmond water.
- Brita can filter 15 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 potentially filter out all 20 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:
- Aluminum
- Bromide
- Fluoride
- Haloacetic acids – chlorination byproduct*
- Hexavalent chromium – health effects
- Molybdenum
- Nitrate
- Nitrite
- Strontium
- Total trihalomethanes – byproduct of chlorination*
*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.ci.richmond.ca.us/ to find contact information for your local officials.