Germanium
Overview
Germanium is a metal, and EPA classes it as one. It reaches water from natural deposits and from electronics and optics manufacturing. EPA monitored it nationwide in 2018 to 2020.
In Florida, Germanium was found in 9 community water systems serving about 494,215 people. Nobody has set a legal limit for it, so no reading here counts as an exceedance and no utility is required to do anything about it.
Where it comes from: Erosion of natural deposits; electronics and optics manufacturing.
The standards
Enforceable. A utility must stay at or under this.
Health-based, not enforceable. Often lower than the limit, sometimes zero.
Nobody has published a health goal for this substance, official or otherwise.
Health effects the EPA associates with it: EPA published no reference concentration for germanium. Its own note says a value exists in the CCL 4 sheets but rests on a single study, so none was issued for the survey. There is no federal number, and no state number, to compare a reading against.
The health goal is set on health alone. The legal limit is set as close to it as is technically and economically feasible, so treatment cost and available technology are written into the number a utility is measured against. A system at or under the limit is meeting the standard it is required to meet. Both numbers are shown so the distance between them is visible.
What removes it
Reverse osmosis is the household method that removes dissolved metals of this kind.
Treatment guidance describes the methods generally used for this contaminant. What your own tap actually carries depends on your plumbing and your service line as much as on the utility, which is what a test at the house tells you and an annual report cannot.
Where in Florida
Highest reported levels
Data Sources
These figures describe water as delivered by each utility, not what your home’s plumbing adds after it arrives. Informational; not a substitute for testing your own tap.