Valdosta, Georgia
What is the Water Quality in Valdosta, Georgia?
Compared to other US cities, Valdosta water quality ranks in the lower-middle range for contamination excluding Lead.
Most of their 17 contaminants have cancer-causing attributes.
- Chloroform is at extremely high levels: 131x health guidelines.
- Haloacetic acids (HAA5) are at extremely high levels: 317x health guidelines.
- Haloacetic acids (HAA9) are at extremely high levels: 891x 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 Valdosta water.
What’s in Valdosta water?
Here are the top 5 chemical compounds in your water and what health issues they can potentially cause:
- Bromodichloromethane – Potential effect: Cancer
- Chloroform – Potential effect: Cancer
- Hexavalent Chromium – Potential effect: Cancer
- Haloacetic acids (HAA5 and HAA9) – Potential effect: Cancer
- Total trihalomethanes – Potential effect: Cancer
These are five of the 17 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).
10 of these contaminants are rated as exceeding EWG Health Guidelines.
Does Valdosta have Lead contamination?
No, Valdosta does not currently have lead in its water. The most recent Lead samples collected from 2015 through 2017 showed concentrations of 0.0 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 Valdosta’s water come from?
Valdosta’s water comes from the Valdosta – Withlacoochee River watershed.
5 of the 6 water sources in the Valdosta – Withlacoochee River watershed are in Impaired or Unknown condition. These include:
- Sugar Creek
- Tributary to Cherry Creek
- Two Mile Branch
- Withlacoochee River
Ideally, a water source would be rated in Good condition.
Learn more from How’s My Waterway
See below for what you can do to improve Valdosta’s water.
What Can You Do?
Information about water quality in Valdosta 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 85% of contaminants in your drinking water.
- Berkey filters can also remove up to 99.99% of any Lead in Valdosta water.
- Brita can filter 10 of 17 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 14 of the 17 contaminants in your whole house, consider a reverse osmosis 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:
- Bromate
- Chloroform
- Chromium (hexavalent)
- Fluoride
- Haloacetic acids (HAA5)
- Haloacetic acids (HAA9)
- Strontium
- Total trihalomethanes (TTHMs)
- Trichloroacetic acid
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.valdostacity.com/government to find contact information for your local officials.