Taunton, Massachusetts

What is the Water Quality in Taunton, Massachusetts?

[Updated: June 9, 2023]

Compared to other US cities, Taunton water quality ranks in the lower-middle range for contamination excluding Lead.

Most of their 18 contaminants have cancer-causing attributes.

• Chloroform is at extremely high levels: 83x health guidelines.
• Haloacetic acids (HAA5) are at extremely high levels: 266x health guidelines.
• Haloacetic acids (HAA9) are at extremely high levels: 540x 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 Taunton water.

What’s in Taunton water?

Here are the top 5 chemical compounds in your water and what health issues they can potentially cause:

1. Bromodichloromethane – Potential effect: Cancer
2. Chloroform – Potential effect: Cancer
3. Haloacetic acids (HAA5) – Potential effect: Cancer
4. Nitrate – Potential effect: Cancer
5. Total trihalomethanes – Potential effect: Cancer

These are five of the 18 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).

9 of these contaminants are rated as exceeding EWG Health Guidelines.

Does Taunton have Lead contamination?

Yes, Taunton has lead in its water. The most recent Lead samples collected from 2015 through 2017 showed concentrations up to 4.0 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 Taunton’s water come from?

Taunton’s water comes from the Mill River watershed.

15 of the 18 water sources in the Mill River watershed are in Impaired or Unknown condition. These include:

• Beaumont Pond
• Beaver Brook
• Briggs Pond
• Lake Sabbatia
• Mill River
• New Pond
• Watson Pond
• Winnecunnet Pond

Ideally, a water source would be rated in Good condition. Canoe River is in Good Condition.

Learn more from How’s My Waterway

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

What Can You Do?

Information about water quality in Taunton 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, consider a reverse osmosis water filtration system for your house.
  • These are typically more expensive than pitchers to purchase, but are much more effective.
  • They have the benefit of filtering out heavy hitters like:
    • Aluminum
    • Chloroform
    • Chromium (hexavalent)
    • Fluoride
    • Haloacetic acids – HAA5 and HAA9
    • Nitrate
    • Perchlorate – Used to control static electricity in food packaging. Toxic to the thyroid gland.
    • Radium
    • Strontium
    • Total trihalomethanes
    • Trichloroacetic acid
  • Our recommendation: APEC Reverse Osmosis Systems

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.taunton-ma.gov/ to find contact information for your local officials.

Water Quality in Other Massachusetts Cities

Massachusetts Water Quality Page