White Plains, New York
What is the Water Quality in White Plains, New York?
Compared to other US cities, White Plains water quality ranks in the middle range for contamination excluding Lead.
Most of their 21 contaminants have cancer-causing attributes.
- Chloroform is at extremely high levels: 65x health guidelines.
- Haloacetic acids (HAA5) are at extremely high levels: 396x health guidelines.
- Haloacetic acids (HAA9) are at extremely high levels: 945x 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 White Plains water.
What’s in White Plains 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
- Haloacetic acids (HAA5 and HAA9) – 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).
9 of these contaminants are rated as exceeding EWG Health Guidelines.
Does White Plains have Lead contamination?
Yes, White Plains has lead in its water. The most recent Lead samples collected from 2017 through 2019 showed concentrations up to 2.9 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 White Plains water come from?
White Plains water comes from the Upper Bronx River watershed.
All 4 water sources in the Upper Bronx River watershed are in Impaired or Unknown condition. These include:
- Upper Bronx River and tributaries
- Grassy Sprain Reservoir
- Kensico Reservoir tributaries
- White Plains Reservoirs
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 White Plains water.
What Can You Do?
Information about water quality in White Plains can be surprising and downright scary.
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 90% of contaminants in your drinking water.
- Berkey filters can also remove up to 99.99% of Lead in White Plains water.
- Brita can filter 12 of 21 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 19 of 21 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:
- Barium
- Chloroform
- Chromium (hexavalent)
- Fluoride
- Haloacetic acids (HAA5)
- Haloacetic acids (HAA9)
- Nitrate
- Nitrite
- Pentachlorophenol
- 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.cityofwhiteplains.com/ to find contact information for your local officials.