Shawnee, Kansas
What is the Water Quality in Shawnee, Kansas?
[Updated: June 9, 2023]
Compared to other US cities, Shawnee water quality ranks in the middle range for contamination excluding Lead.
Most of their 25 contaminants have cancer-causing attributes.
- Arsenic is at extremely high levels: 225x health guidelines.
- Haloacetic acids (HAA5) are at extremely high levels: 162x health guidelines.
- Haloacetic acids (HAA9) are at extremely high levels: 221x health guidelines.
- These are both byproducts of the chlorine treatment process most water supplies go through.
Let’s look closer at what’s in Shawnee water.
What’s in Shawnee water?
Here are the top 5 chemical compounds in your water and what health issues they can potentially cause:
- Arsenic – Potential effect: Cancer
- Atrazine – Potential effect: Harm to the developing fetus
- Hexavalent Chromium – Potential effect: Cancer
- Haloacetic acids (HAA5) – Potential effect: Cancer
- Total trihalomethanes – Potential effect: Cancer
These are five of the 25 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).
12 of these contaminants are rated as exceeding EWG Health Guidelines.
Does Shawnee have Lead contamination?
Yes, Shawnee has lead in its water. The most recent Lead samples collected from 2015 through 2017 showed concentrations up to 3.8 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 Shawnee’s water come from?
Shawnee’s water comes from the Turkey Creek – Kansas River watershed.
All 8 water sources in the Turkey Creek – Kansas River watershed are in Impaired condition. These include:
- Antioch Park Lake
- Barber Creek
- Brenner Heights Creek
- Kansas River
- Mattoon Creek
- Muncie Creek
- Pierson Park Lake
- Turkey Creek
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 three uses:
- Aquatic Life
- Fish and Shellfish Consumption
- Recreation
Learn more from How’s My Waterway
See below for what you can do to improve Shawnee’s water.
What Can You Do?
Information about water quality in Shawnee 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 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:
- Arsenic
- Atrazine – herbicide
- Bromodichloromethane
- Chlorite
- Chloroform
- Fluoride
- Haloacetic acids – HAA5 and HAA9
- Hexavalent chromium
- Nitrate
- Selenium
- Strontium
- Total trihalomethanes – byproduct of chlorination*
- Xylenes
- 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://cityofshawnee.org/ to find contact information for your local officials.