pH
Overview
pH measures how acidic or basic the water is. The secondary range (6.5 to 8.5) keeps water from tasting off or being corrosive to plumbing.
In Florida, pH was found in 879 community water systems serving about 4,132,269 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: Natural water chemistry; treatment.
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: Not a health concern within the normal range. Low pH can be corrosive to pipes; high pH can taste bitter or feel slippery.
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
A neutralising filter, usually calcite, raises low pH. That matters beyond taste: corrosive low-pH water is what dissolves lead and copper out of household plumbing, so correcting it where water enters the house treats the cause of those metals rather than filtering the result.
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
Showing the 25 highest of 879 systems that reported pH.
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.