St. Cloud, Florida

What is the Water Quality in St. Cloud, Florida?

Compared to other US cities, St. Cloud water quality ranks in the low range for contamination excluding Lead.

Most of their 11 contaminants have cancer-causing attributes.

• Haloacetic acids (HAA9) are at extremely high levels: 394x health guidelines.

Let’s look closer at what’s in St. Cloud water.

What’s in St. Cloud water?

Here are the main 4 chemical compounds in your water and what health issues they can potentially cause:

1. Chlorate – Potential effect: Harm to the thyroid
2. Haloacetic acids (HAA5) – Potential effect: Cancer
3. Haloacetic acids (HAA9) – Potential effect: Cancer
4. Total trihalomethanes – Potential effect: Cancer

These are four of the 11 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).

These 4 contaminants are rated as exceeding EWG Health Guidelines.

Does St. Cloud have Lead contamination?

Yes, St. Cloud, Florida has lead in its water. The most recent Lead samples collected in 2017 showed concentrations up to 3.7 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 St. Cloud’s water come from?

St. Cloud’s water comes from the East Lake Tohopekaliga watershed.

7 of the 10 water sources in the East Lake Tohopekaliga watershed are in Impaired or Unknown condition. These include:

• Ajay Lake
• Boggy Creek
• East Lake Tohopekaliga
• Hart Branch
• Jim Branch
• Lake Center Outlet
• Lake Runnymeade

Ideally, a water source would be rated in Good condition. Alligator Lake Outlet, East Lake Tohopekaliga Drain, and St. Cloud Canal are in good condition.

Learn more from How’s My Waterway

See below for what you can do to improve St. Cloud’s water.

What Can You Do?

Information about water quality in St. Cloud, Florida 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 75% of contaminants in your drinking water.
  • Berkey filters can also remove up to 99.99% of Lead in St. Cloud water.
  • Brita can filter 5 of the 11 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 9 of the 11 contaminants, consider a whole house water filtration system for your home.
  • These are typically more expensive than pitchers to purchase, but are much more effective.
  • They have the benefit of filtering out heavy hitters like:
    • Barium
    • Haloacetic acids (HAA5 and HAA9)
    • Fluoride
    • Nitrate
    • Strontium
    • Total trihalomethanes

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.stcloud.org/ to find contact information for your local officials.

Water Quality in Other Florida Cities

Florida Water Quality Page