Vallejo, California
What is the Water Quality in Vallejo, California?
[Updated: June 12, 2023]
Compared to other US cities, Vallejo water quality ranks in the middle range for contamination excluding Lead.
Most of the 21 contaminants have cancer-causing attributes.
- Chloroform is at very high levels: 83x health guidelines.
- Haloacetic acids (HAA5) are at extremely high levels: 141x health guidelines.
- Haloacetic acids (HAA9) are at extremely high levels: 313x health guidelines.
- These are both byproducts of the chlorine treatment process most water supplies go through.
Let’s look closer at what’s in Vallejo water.
What’s in Vallejo water?
Here are the top 5 chemical compounds in your water and what health issues they can potentially cause:
- Bromate – Potential effect: Cancer
- Chloroform – Potential effect: Cancer
- Haloacetic acids – Potential effect: Cancer
- Hexavalent Chromium – Potential effect: Cancer
- Total trihalomethanes – Potential effect: Cancer
These are five of the 21 contaminants analyzed by the Environmental Working Group (ewg.org).
These 12 contaminants are rated as exceeding EWG Health Guidelines.
Does Vallejo water have Lead contamination?
Yes, Vallejo has lead in its water. The most recent Lead samples collected from 2016 through 2018 showed concentrations up to 1.4 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 removed.
See the What Can You Do? section below to learn how to filter out contaminants.
Where does Vallejo’s water come from?
Vallejo’s water comes from the American Canyon Creek – Frontal San Pablo Bay Estuaries watershed.
7 of the 8 EPA assessed water sources in the American Canyon Creek – Frontal San Pablo Bay Estuaries watershed are in Impaired or Unknown condition. These include:
- American Canyon Creek
- Lake Chabot
- Napa River – 2 segments
- North Slough
- Rindler Creek
- Vallejo Marina
Ideally, a water source would be rated in Good condition. One segment of the Napa River is 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 Vallejo’s water.
Conclusion – What Can You Do?
Information about water quality can be surprising.
But there are things you can do in your home to clean up your water.
- Test Your Water using Varify Home Test Kits or similar.
- To Remove Lead and Other Contaminants In Your Home:
- Use Activated Carbon filters to remove most contaminants in your drinking water.
- To filter out even more 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:
- Aluminum
- Bromate
- Chloroform
- Fluoride
- Haloacetic acids – chlorination byproduct*
- Hexavalent chromium – health effects
- Molybdenum
- Strontium
- Total trihalomethanes – byproduct of chlorination*
- Our recommendation: APEC Reverse Osmosis Systems
*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.cityofvallejo.net/city_hall/city_government to find contact information for your local officials.