Royal Oak, Michigan
What is the Water Quality in Royal Oak, Michigan?
Compared to other US cities, Royal Oak water quality ranks in the lower-middle range for contamination excluding Lead.
Most of their 19 contaminants have cancer-causing attributes.
- Chloroform is at extremely high levels: 37x health guidelines.
- Haloacetic acids (HAA5) are at extremely high levels: 124x health guidelines.
- Haloacetic acids (HAA9) are at extremely high levels: 395x health guidelines.
- HAA5 and HAA9 are byproducts of chlorine treatment, a common method of disinfecting water supplies.
Let’s look closer at what’s in Royal Oak water.
What’s in Royal Oak water?
Here are the top 5 chemical compounds in your water and what health issues they can potentially cause:
- Chloroform
- Hexavalent Chromium – Potential effect: Cancer
- Haloacetic acids (HAA5) – Potential effect: Cancer
- Radium – Potential effect: Cancer
- Total trihalomethanes – Potential effect: Cancer
These are five of the 19 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).
12 of the total contaminants are rated as exceeding EWG Health Guidelines.
Does Royal Oak have Lead contamination?
Yes, Royal Oak has lead in its water. The most recent Lead samples collected from 2015 through 2017 showed concentrations up to 2.4 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 filtered out.
See the What Can You Do? section below to learn how to filter out contaminants.
Where does Royal Oak’s water come from?
Royal Oak’s water comes from the McCoy Drain – Red Run watershed.
4 of the 6 assessed water sources in the McCoy Drain – Red Run watershed are in Impaired condition.This means that they are impaired for Aquatic Life, Fish and Shellfish Consumption, and Recreation.
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 Royal Oak’s water.
What Can You Do?
Information about water quality in Royal Oak 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:
There is one solution that beats Brita, PUR, and expensive whole house systems.
- It costs less per gallon.
- Needs fewer filter changes.
- And it doesn’t make your water taste weird.
- Use Berkey filters with activated carbon to filter out at least 80% of contaminants in your drinking water.
- Berkey filters can also remove up to 99.99% of Lead in Royal Oak water.
- Brita can filter 10 of 19 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 17 of the 19 contaminants in your whole house, consider a Reverse Osmosis water filtration system for your home.
- These are more expensive than pitchers to purchase, but can be more effective.
- They have the benefit of filtering out heavy hitters like:
- Barium
- Bromodichloromethane
- Bromoform
- Chromium (total)
- Fluoride
- Haloacetic acids (HAA5)
- Haloacetic acids (HAA9)
- Hexavalent chromium – byproduct of chlorination
- Nitrate
- Radium
- 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: https://romi.gov/ to find contact information for your local officials.