Southfield, Michigan
Water Quality in Southfield, Michigan
Watershed: Eliza Howell Park – River Rouge
What is the water quality like in Southfield, MI?
Let’s dive deeper into what’s in Southfield water.
What’s in your water?
Here are the top 3 chemical compounds in your water and what health issues they can potentially cause:
- Hexavalent Chromium – Potential effect: Cancer
- Haloacetic acids (HAA5) – Potential effect: Cancer
- Total trihalomethanes – Potential effect: Cancer
These are three of the 5 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).
These 3 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 Southfield’s water come from?
Southfield’s water comes from the Eliza Howell Park – River Rouge watershed.
The only EPA assessed water source in the Eliza Howell Park – River Rouge watershed is in Impaired condition. This includes the all the main Rivers and Streams in the watershed.
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 Southfield’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 ALL 5 contaminants in your drinking water.
- Berkey filters can also remove up to 99.99% of Lead in Southfield water.
- Brita can filter 2 (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 4 of the 5 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:
- Haloacetic acids – chlorination byproduct*
- Hexavalent chromium
- 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://www.cityofsouthfield.com/departments to find contact information for your local officials.