What's in Arlington, VA tap water?
Arlington County buys finished water from the Washington Aqueduct, so its contaminant profile mirrors DC's. Chlorination byproducts (haloacetic acids and trihalomethanes) are the contaminants that most exceed EWG health guidelines, by hundreds of times.
Arlington County Water quality report, explained
What Arlington County Water's own test results show for Arlington, compared with EWG's health guidelines. Every result here is within EPA legal limits.
Served by
Arlington County Water
Washington Aqueduct, Potomac River (chlorinated)
14
over guideline
Zip codes covered: 22201, 22202, 22203, 22204, 22205, 22206, 22207 and surrounding Arlingtonareas. “× over” compares the detected level to EWG's health guideline, not the federal legal limit.
Measured by the EPA · Arlington, VA
Arlington, VA tap water is fully legal.
It is also 10× the health standard for lead.
Arlington's water is treated elsewhere and bought in, then distributed locally to about 215,000 people.
Surface water needs heavy disinfection, and chlorine reacting with organic matter in the river is what creates trihalomethanes and haloacetic acids. Those are the contaminants that most often sit above health guidelines here, and they form in the pipes after treatment rather than at the plant.
Every federal limit that applies here is met. Those limits weigh what removal costs. EWG says its health standards are “based only on protecting health and does not consider technical feasibility or the cost of water treatment”. Here is how far apart the two are.
Harm to the brain and nervous system · EPA limit 10 ppb (action level, lowered from 15 ppb, in force November 2027)
Harm to fetal growth and child development · no federal limit exists
Harm to fetal growth and child development · no federal limit exists
The EPA's latest round found 2 PFAS compounds in this supply. Lead sampling put the ninetieth percentile at 2 ppb — meaning nine in ten homes tested below that, and one in ten above it. It has no violations on file.
Arlington County, on the EPA's record
- Source
- surface water
- Connections served
- 37,076
- People served
- 215,000
Levels: EPA Fifth Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR5, 2023–2025) for PFAS, and the Lead and Copper Rule 90th-percentile result for lead and copper — the highest reported for Arlington County. Health standards: EWG's published drinking water standards, updated February 2025. Levels vary by sampling point and date, and being above a health standard is not a legal violation.
The fix for Arlington water
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Reverse osmosis under your sink, for the 14 contaminants over EWG guidelines in water from Arlington County Water.
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Arlington water quality FAQ
Is Arlington, VA tap water safe to drink?
Water from Arlington County Water meets all federal EPA legal limits. However, independent EWG testing finds 14 contaminants above its stricter health-based guidelines, including haloacetic acids (HAA9) and haloacetic acids (HAA5). Legal compliance and health-optimal water are not the same thing.
What contaminants are in Arlington water?
The most notable contaminants above EWG health guidelines are haloacetic acids (HAA9), haloacetic acids (HAA5), total trihalomethanes (TTHMs), bromodichloromethane and 10 more. These are largely disinfection byproducts and trace metals common to the region's water sources.
Does a reverse osmosis system remove these contaminants?
Yes. A reverse osmosis system like the Sanavia Hydra uses a 0.0001-micron membrane plus multi-stage carbon filtration to reduce every contaminant class detected in Arlington water, at your tap, regardless of what the utility does upstream.
The contaminants flagged in Arlington water
Plain-English guides to what Arlington County Watertesting turns up above EWG's health guidelines — what each one is, and what actually removes it.
Reverse osmosis in Arlington, VA
Arlington County Water treats this water to the federal standard, yet the contaminants listed above still exceed EWG’s stricter health guidelines — Haloacetic acids (HAA9), Haloacetic acids (HAA5), Total trihalomethanes (TTHMs) and 11 more. Most of them either pass straight through treatment or form after the plant, in the pipes between it and the tap, which is why the fix has to be at the tap as well.
Trihalomethanes and haloacetic acids are not in the river — they form in the pipes, after treatment, when chlorine meets the organic matter it is there to deal with. That is why they are worst at the far end of a distribution network, and why filtering at the tap catches them where testing at the plant cannot.
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