Taylor, Michigan
What is the Water Quality in Taylor, Michigan?
Compared to other US cities, Taylor water quality ranks in the lower range for contamination excluding Lead.
Most of their 13 contaminants have cancer-causing attributes.
- Haloacetic acids (HAA5) are at extremely high levels: 145x health guidelines.
- Haloacetic acids (HAA9) are at extremely high levels: 380x 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 Taylor water.
What’s in Taylor water?
Here are the top 5 chemical compounds in your water and what health issues they can potentially cause:
- Hexavalent Chromium – Potential effect: Cancer
- Haloacetic acids (HAA5) – Potential effect: Cancer
- Haloacetic acids (HAA9) – Potential effect: Cancer
- Radium – Potential effect: Cancer
- Total trihalomethanes – Potential effect: Cancer
These are four of the 13 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).
6 of the total contaminants are rated as exceeding EWG Health Guidelines.
Does Taylor have Lead contamination?
Yes, Taylor has lead in its water. The most recent Lead samples collected from 2015 through 2017 showed concentrations up to 5.6 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.
See the What Can You Do? section below to learn how to remove contaminants.
Where does Taylor’s water come from?
Taylor’s water comes from the Ecorse River watershed.
One of the two water sources in the Ecorse River watershed is in Impaired condition. This is a series of not formally named rivers and streams.
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 Taylor’s water.
What Can You Do?
Information about water quality in Taylor can be surprising.
But there are things you can do in your home clean up your water.
To Remove Lead and Other Contaminants In Your Home:
There’s 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 Taylor water.
- They also remove HAA5 and HAA9.
- Brita can filter 3 of 13 contaminants and Lead depending on the filter.
- Note: We may receive a commission if you decide to purchase filters through links on this page.
- Berkey filters can also remove up to 99.99% of Lead in Taylor water.
- To filter out 11 of the 13 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
- Fluoride
- Germanium
- Haloacetic acids (HAA5)
- Haloacetic acids (HAA9)
- Hexavalent chromium
- 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: http://cityoftaylor.com/27/Government to find contact information for your local officials.