Speaking of water… Houston receives more rain than cloudy Seattle, recording 49 inches per year. This is why Houston has so many waterways and bayous.
City Water
Houston Water Quality Analysis
6 min read
- 01 | Who Regulates Houston's Water Supply?
- 02 | Houston's Annual Water Quality Report
- 03 | Environmental Working Group's Water Quality Report
- 04 | Where Does Houston Get Its Water?
- 05 | Treating Houston's Drinking Water
- 06 | Testing and Monitoring Water Quality
- 07 | Contaminants Threatening Houston's Water Supply
- 08 | Keeping Lead Out of Houston's Tap Water
- 09 | What Can You Do for Yourself to Stay Safe?
- 10 | Should Houstonions Use Install Home Water Filters?
It doesn't take long in Houston for the local positivity and laid-back attitude to rub off on you.
Houston has been classified as one of the fastest growing cities over the last two decades.
Houston draws sports fans, Tex-Mex foodies, museum-goers, live music fans, rodeo enthusiasts, families, university students, and young professionals from all sorts of industries.
Even though Houston receives more rain than Seattle…
It still gets boiling hot and humid!
Temperatures in the late summer can reach triple digits, with up to 90% humidity.
Here's everything you need to know about the water in Houston and how to stay safely hydrated!
The Houston Water and Wastewater Utility (HWWU) is the main organization in charge of Houston’s water supply.
They’re licensed by the Texas Board of Professional Engineers and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ).
Some other organizations that oversee Houston's water quality include:
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which regulates 120 different contaminants in public water systems…
and…
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which regulates contaminants in bottled water.
Next, let's look at the results from the city’s latest water quality reports:
Is Houston's water safe to drink?
According to The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), it is indeed…
The latest study revealed that the water supply meets all regulatory standards and is safe to drink.
But the annual water quality results were not perfect, and they did find traces of arsenic.
Arsenic levels in Houston's main drinking water are low, well below state and federal action levels.
But the TCEQ isn’t the only water quality report around…
Let’s find out what the Environmental Working Group found in their Annual Water Quality Report:
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is a non-profit organization that produces water quality and consumer food product reports.
Ultimately, the EWG's health standards are far more strict than the federal government's.
The report includes results from tests conducted by the water utility and provided to the Environmental Working Group by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
This water utility's tap water met federal health-based drinking water standards assessed by the United States EPA.
In their most recent report, they discovered 15 cancer-causing contaminants above safe levels, including:
- Arsenic: 528x
- Bromochloroacetic acid: 257x
- Bromodichloromethane:101x
- Chloroform: 39x
- Chromium (hexavalent): 37x
- Dibromoacetic acid: 25x
- Dibromochloromethane: 17x
- Dichloroacetic acid: 94x
- Haloacetic acids (HAA5):268x
- Haloacetic acids (HAA9): 599x
- Radium, combined (-226 & -228):24x
- Total trihalomethanes (TTHMs): 215x
- Trichloroacetic acid: 61x
- Uranium: 4.2x
Although the EPA does not regulate these compounds, initial lab tests reveal that they can adversely affect humans.
Fortunately, installing an in-home water filter can remove up to 99.9% of harmful pollutants, but more on that later…
Houston sources its water from lakes, rivers, ponds, streams, reservoirs, springs, and wells throughout the area.
Houston Water Main System is the main distribution network for the city, and customers drink water from three water purification plants and 40 groundwater plants.
The other five Houston Water Systems are served by 16 additional groundwater plants.
The only question is, what types of treatments do these processing plants use?
Keep reading to find out more!
To remove harmful contaminants, the City of Houston treats the water in accordance with federal and state regulations.
Water dissolves naturally occurring minerals as it travels over the land's surface or through the ground and can be polluted by human or animal activity.
Microbial contaminants that may be present in source water include:
- Bacteria
- Viruses
- Stormwater runoff
- Inorganic contaminants such as salts and metals
- Pesticides and herbicides from agriculture
- Organic chemicals from industrial or petroleum use
- Naturally occurring radioactive materials
To ensure that tap water is safe to drink, the EPA imposes laws that restrict the number of pollutants allowed in public water systems.
The Food and Drug Administration sets limits for contaminants in bottled water that must provide the same level of public health protection.
Drinking water may contain contaminants that cause taste, color, or odor issues.
But according to the government…
Low levels of contaminants don’t necessarily mean that the water is unsafe to drink.
Here’s what we mean:
Drinking clean and safe water helps prevent illness, birth defects, and even death.
To ensure that the water is safe for humans, public water systems are routinely tested to ensure that the levels of water pollutants do not exceed the EPA's Maximum Contaminant Levels.
Texas regulates 7,053 public water systems that serve more than 29.5 million customers.
Two USGS sites in the Lake Houston drainage have monitored water quality since 2005.
These water-quality monitoring stations are in both rural and urban watersheds, including:
- Temperature, conductivity, pH, dissolved oxygen, and turbidity
- Lake Houston water-quality updates
- Real-time data helps facility operators modify treatment techniques to changing environmental circumstances
Next up, we'll take a look at which types of contaminants are threatening Houston's water.
Certain microbial contaminants in drinking water, such as Cryptosporidium, may make some people more vulnerable to infections.
The following people are classified as "vulnerable":
- Infants
- Pregnant woman
- The elderly
- Immunocompromised people (such as organ transplant recipients, those undergoing cancer chemotherapy, those receiving steroid treatment, and people with other immune system disorders like HIV/AIDS)
Elevated levels of lead, if present, can cause serious health problems, particularly in pregnant women and young children.
Most lead in drinking water comes from materials and components associated with service lines and in-home plumbing.
Providing clean drinking water is the responsibility of the City of Houston, Texas, but they have no control over the materials used in residential plumbing components.
When the water in your home plumbing has been sitting for several hours, you can reduce the risk of lead exposure by flushing your tap for one to two minutes before drinking or cooking with it.
If you are concerned about lead in your water, you should have it professionally tested.
There have been reports of elevated lead levels in the city's Fifth Ward and other areas recently if you've been paying attention to the news.
The high levels of lead, which can cause serious health problems, including brain damage (especially in children), are pressuring Houston Harris County to move faster on remediation by removing old, lead-based piping.
The issue is that many of these efforts are not moving quickly enough to keep everyone in Houston safe.
The EPA has a few suggestions to keep yourself and your loved ones safe.
First and foremost, test your water.
If there is lead in your water, filtration and softening solution will remove it.
Other options include:
- If your tap hasn't been used in several hours, run it
- Be aware of any work that may interfere with your primary service line
- Because hot water dissolves lead more quickly, only use cold water for drinking, cooking, or making baby formula
- Get rid of your entire lead service line
Keep reading to discover more about home water filters and how Houstonians can benefit from them:
Yes!
Installing a home filter is a no-brainer…
Let's take a look at the benefits of getting a high quality filtration system for your home:
You'll have complete control over the water's quality.
You won't rely on bottled water from a municipal plant.
Maybe you've tested your water and found the contamination problem…
Well, now you can treat it with the best filtration system on the market.
Filtering water at home saves a lot of money.
An excellent countertop filter costs $59.95 and lasts up to 12 months (or 750 gallons of filtered water), saving you money over bottled water or rental water.
Or for only a few hundred dollars, you can install an undersink reverse osmosis filter and drink some of the cleanest water known to man (but more on that in a sec).
Using a water filter reduces reliance on bottled water, limits plastic littering the streets, and ultimately reduces pollution of waterways.
That means less pollution in Houston’s source water!
You can't predict when your city may issue a water alert.
Pipe breaks, oil spills, sewage spills, earthquakes, hurricanes, and storms can contaminate drinking water.
A water filter or purifier will save you money and additional stress during emergencies.
Hard water may not necessarily be unhealthy to drink, but it is absolutely awful for your plumbing, tub, and appliances.
A high-quality filtration system ensures safe, pleasant drinking water for you and your family.
Cloud Reverse Osmosis Water Filters even use built-in software to monitor your water quality 24/7.
Click here to learn more.
