Albuquerque Water Quality Analysis
- 01 | Who Regulates Albuquerque’s Drinking Water?
- 02 | Albuquerque Annual Water Quality Report
- 03 | Environmental Working Group Water Quality Report
- 04 | Contaminants Threatening Albuquerque’s Water Quality
- 05 | Where Does Albuquerque Get Its Water?
- 06 | Treating Albuquerque’s Drinking Water
- 07 | Testing and Monitoring Albuquerque’s Water Quality
- 08 | Should Albuquerque Residents Use In-home Water Filters?
Albuquerque has some serious quarks to its tap water…
Including super-high levels of the heavy metal arsenic.
Unfortunately, that’s not the only nasty contaminant lurking inside the city’s water supply.
Keep reading to learn all about the latest data on Albuquerque’s water quality…
The Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority provides drinking water to the greater Albuquerque area.
It is the largest water utility in New Mexico.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets regulations for treating and monitoring drinking water throughout the country for over 100 contaminants.
The New Mexico Environmental Public Tracking works closely with state and federal organizations to identify connections between drinking water and health effects.
Every year the City of Albuquerque publishes an annual water quality report to update the public on the current state of the city’s drinking water.
In their most recent report, Albuquerque met all state and federal standards for safe drinking water.
The results are based on thousands of water samples collected over the course of the year.
With that said, not all agencies are as impressed with the EPA’s safety standards…
The Environmental Working Group is a non-profit organization that publishes data from water utilities across the country.
The EWG’s health guidelines for contaminants in drinking water are much stricter than the federal government’s.
In the EWG’s latest report on the City of Albuquerque’s water, they presented data from the New Mexico Environment Department and the EPA Enforcement and Compliance History database.
Although the EWG agrees that Albuequerque passed all legal standards, they do not agree that the city’s water is safe based on the most current medical research.
Out of 33 total contaminants detected, 16 of them were above the EWG health guidelines by the following amounts:
- Arsenic: 585x
- Bromate: 14x
- Bromodichloromethane: 131x
- Bromoform: 5x
- Chloroform: 22x
- Chromium (hexavalent): 49x
- Dibromoacetic acid: 42x
- Dibromochloromethane: 71x
- Dichloroacetic acid: 20x
- Haloacetic acids (HAA5): 93x
- Haloacetic acids (HAA9): 247x
- Nitrate and nitrite: 2.7x
- Radium: 3.1x
- Total trihalomethanes (TTHMs): 174x
- Trichloroacetic acid: 21x
- Uranium: 3.8x
Other contaminants detected at lower levels include:
- Dioxane
- Butanol
- Barium
- Bromide
- Chlorate
- Chromium (total)
- Ethylbenzene
- Fluoride
- Manganese
- Molybdenum
- Monobromoacetic acid
- Monochloroacetic acid
- Toluidine
- Strontium
- Trichloroethylene
- Vanadium
- Xylenes (total)
Next, let’s take a closer look at some of the contaminants threatening Albuquerque’s water quality…
Drinking water contaminants come in many forms, both natural and man-made.
According to the Albuquerque Water Utility Authority, pollutants in the water supply can come in many forms, including:
- Microbial contaminants like viruses and bacteria
- Inorganic contaminants like salts and metals
- Pesticides and herbicides
- Organic contaminants from industrial processes and gas stations
- Radioactive elements found naturally in the ground and from human activity
Here are some of the biggest concerns for Albuquerque’s water quality:
By far, the biggest threat to Albuequerque’s tap drinking water is arsenic.
Arsenic is a highly toxic metal that’s linked to increased rates of cancer, heart disease and diabetes.
In the EWG report, levels were a whopping 585x the organization's recommended health guidelines.
With that said, it’s important that the arsenic concentrations were only 2 mg/L, which is well below the federal government's maximum contaminant level of 10 mg/L.
In the Albuquerque Water Utility’s own words:
"While your drinking water meets USEPA’s standard for arsenic, it does contain low levels of arsenic. USEPA’s standard balances the current understanding of arsenic’s possible health effects against the costs of removing arsenic from drinking water. USEPA continues to research the health effects of low levels of arsenic, which is a metal known to cause cancer in humans at high concentrations and is linked to other health effects such as skin damage and circulatory problems."
In the end, it’s up to you to decide which levels are safe for you and your family.
Chromium is a toxic metal that is not fully regulated by the federal government.
Although they do set limits for total chromium, they do not set specific limits for the most toxic form: chromium-6, also called hexavalent chromium.
In the Environmental Working Group’s report, Albuquerque tested 49x higher than what recent science indicates can increase cancer risk.
For example, one recent study found that evidence suggests that drinking water contaminated with chromium-6 can increase the risk of stomach cancers.
Nitrate and nitrite are compounds that are used as pesticides in fertilizers, and are also added to promote plant growth.
Both compounds occur naturally in human and animal feces in large quantities.
They are one of the most common water pollutants in rural areas where there’s a lot of agriculture and farming activities.
Nitrates can also enter the water from leaky septic tanks.
In the EWG’s report, Albuquerque tested for nitrate and nitrite levels over three times higher than their recommended health guidelines.
So, what happens when you drink nitrate-contaminated water?
Nitrates are most dangerous for young children and infants, especially infants under the age of six months.
Babies who drink formula mixed with nitrate-polluted water can develop a life-threatening condition called methemoglobinemia, also known as “blue baby syndrome.”
Nitrates prevent the blood from carrying oxygen, and cause the skin to turn a bluish color.
Other symptoms of methemoglobinemia include:
- Decreased blood pressure
- Increased heart rate
- Headaches
- Stomach cramps
- Vomiting
Infants aren’t the only ones at risk, either…
Adults with conditions like anemia, cardiovascular disease, lung disease, glucose-6-phosphate-dehydrogenase deficiency, and other metabolic problems are also at risk.
Some studies also suggest that nitrate consumption may increase the risk of cancer, especially gastric cancer.
Disinfection byproducts, or DBPs, are a group of contaminants formed when chlorine mixes with organic matter in water.
Ironically, there’s no way to avoid them in tap water, because it’s the government’s own doing.
As of today, adding chlorine is the only way to disinfect large amounts of water for whole cities in an economical way.
Unfortunately, DBPs come with some nasty long-term side effects, including:
- Liver damage
- Decreased nervous system activity
- Kidney damage
- Increased risk of bladder cancer
The EPA agrees with all these findings, but they’ve decided that at lower doses, it’s worth the risk to prevent outbreaks of bacterial disease in the water.
Other studies show that DBP exposure can also lead to reproductive problems, including sperm quality, menstrual cycle, preterm delivery, and fetal growth issues.
In the EWG’s study, Albuquerque tested high for at least four different types of DBPs: haloacetic acids (HAA5), haloacetic acids (HAA9), bromodichloromethane, and total trihalomethanes.
In the EWG report, Albuquerque tested at over three times the organization’s recommended health guidelines for radium concentrations.
Radium is a naturally occurring radioactive element found in rocks and soil.
Small amounts can be found in groundwater supplies, but some geographical areas have higher levels than others.
Most shallow aquifers have a lower risk of radium, but deeper aquifers are most at risk.
You cannot smell, see, or taste radium in water, so the only way to know if it’s present is to have your water professionally tested.
When radium enters the body, it behaves similarly to calcium and gets deposited in the bones and other tissues.
Consuming radium in drinking water can serious health effects, including:
- Depressed immunity
- Anemia
- Cataracts
- Fractured teeth
- Increased risk of bone, liver and breast cancer
Uranium is another radioactive heavy metal lurking inside Albuquerque’s water supply.
In the EWG report, they found levels 3.8x the organization’s recommended health guidelines.
Like radium, uranium is found naturally in the rocks and soil, and it can make its way into groundwater in certain parts of the country, including New Mexico.
The main health effects of exposure to uranium in drinking water are damage to the kidneys and bones.
Albuquerque and Bernalillo County get their water from groundwater in the Santa Fe Group Aquifer and surface water from the San Juan-Chama Drinking Water Project.
Together, they produce roughly 32 billion gallons of drinking water for the area every year.
Albuquerque’s groundwater does not require as much treatment as its surface water.
Groundwater is pumped from the city’s wells to storage tanks, then the water is treated with disinfectants and sodium hypochlorite (similar to a weak household bleach)
In some cases, the groundwater undergoes additional treatment for arsenic removal.
Surface water, however, requires more extensive treatment.
Treatment of surface water happens at the San Juan-Chama Drinking Water Project treatment plant and undergoes several stages of treament, including:
- Coagulation and flocculation: Chemicals are added to the water to cause smaller particles to clump into larger ones so they’re easier to remove.
- Sedimentation: The water flows into sedimentation basins where particles settle to the bottom.
- Ozone: This part of the process further breaks down organic material.
- Filtration: The water passes through sand and anthracite filters produce clear water.
- Disinfection: Chlorine is added as a primary disinfectant to kill bacteria, then ammonia is added to form chloramine as a secondary disinfectant.
Once the treatment process is complete, they pump the purified source water to storage tanks where it’s blended with treated groundwater.
The water is then distributed to individual neighborhoods and customer taps by gravity flow.
The Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority works with the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) and other agencies to monitor the city’s source water for contamination.
They also conduct regular tests of the city’s treatment processes and distribution system to make sure the water is safe every step of the way.
Each year, the Albuquerque Water Authority collects and tests over 5,500 water samples from wells, storage tanks, and customer taps.
Some of these are required by the EPA, but many of them are voluntary.
They test samples for a wide range of substances, including microbiological contaminants, disinfection byproducts, and heavy metals.
Some of the testing is required by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and some of it is voluntary, but it’s all done to ensure that Albuquerque and Bernalillo County have a municipal water supply that’s second to none in terms of quality.
Although the City of Albuquerque does the best they can to treat, test, and monitor your tap water, there is no way for them to guarantee contaminant-free drinking water.
If you want to keep you and your family safe, you have to take matters into your own hands.
Unfortunately, basic carbon filters that attach to your faucet are not capable of removing the most dangerous pollutants, like arsenic.
For that, you’ll have to install a more robust system.
High quality reverse osmosis (RO) filtration systems can remove up to 99.9% of all harmful contaminants.
Cloud Water Filters combine several stages of filtration to get the job done, including:
- Sediment filters to trap dirt, rust, dust, and debris
- Activated carbon filters to remove chlorine and improve the taste and smell of your water
- Ion exchange resins to remove excess hard minerals like calcium and magnesium
- RO membranes to remove all the nastiest, difficult-to-remove pollutants like arsenic and chromium
- Polishing filters to catch any remaining contaminants
- Remineralization stage to add a healthy ratio of minerals back into the water and balance pH
Cloud even uses built-in software to monitor your water quality 24/7 through an app on your phone.
Are you ready to enjoy clean, delicious tap water?
