If you’re a Florida resident and you drink water from your tap with complete confidence, maybe you should reconsider what you’re doing. Even though it has a huge amount of surface waters (50,000 miles of rivers and streams, 7,800 lakes and 4,000 miles of estuaries), The Sunshine State is among the last in terms of quality and safety in the entire country.

Ecological emergencies (like the ones in 2018), the constant hurricanes and storms and a bunch of infrastructure problems, have been a serious threat to this vital liquid’s health. 

According to Is your tap water safe? (Website that searches The Environmental Protection Agency states database), there were 20.507 incidents regarding pollutants present in the water in Florida last year. 

In this section, we will show you what were the most prevalent contaminants and how dangerous they are.

Major pollutants in Florida tap water

Total Trihalomethanes (TTHMs)

A group of chemicals (chloroform, bromodichloromethane, dibromochloromethane, and bromoform) that can be found in water when its organic matter is treated with disinfectants like chlorine

Drinking water with high levels of TTHMs can damage your liver, kidney of the central nervous system.  Also, there’s a slight risk of causing bladder or colorectal cancer (if you spend your whole life drinking water with a huge amount of this chemicals). 

Number of incidents in Florida: 7.898

Haloacetic acids (HAA5)

Chemicals formed when the chlorine used to disinfect drinking water reacts with the organic matter in the source.  

These acids can be harmful: they can increase of developing rectal, colon and bladder cancer, have a reverse development for pregnant women and cause damage in DNA (they are genotoxic).

Number of incidents in Florida: 5,305. 

Coliform (TCR) 

Coliforms are bacteria that are present in human and animal digestive track, their waste and in soil and plant material. 

In general, they aren’t dangerous, but some of them can have adverse health effects: stomachaches, vomiting, fever, diarrhea and increase the risk of contracting a water-borne illness.

Number of incidents in Florida: 5,260.

Nitrate 

A Poor wastewater management can make this chemical impurity contaminate the water. The risks go from causing problems like adverse development during pregnancy to causing hypothyroidism and cancer. 

Number of incidents in Florida: 1,210.

At Alkaline Water Us, we bring you clean and healthy solutions for your home and work with our premium water systems.