National Drinking Water Database
Portland Water Bureau - Portland, OR
Serves 539,200 people - Test data available: 2004-2009
This drinking water quality report shows results of tests conducted by the water utility and provided to the Environmental Working Group (EWG) by the Oregon Department of Human Resources. It is part of EWG's national database that includes 47,667 drinking water utilities and 20 million test results. Water utilities nationwide detected more than 300 pollutants between 2004 and 2009. More than half of these chemicals are unregulated, legal in any amount. Despite this widespread contamination, the federal government invests few resources to protecting rivers, reservoirs, and groundwater from pollution in the first place. The information below summarizes test results for this utility and lists potential health concerns.
For more information from your water utility, please see their Consumer Confidence Report.
Contaminants Exceeding Health Guidelines
Other Detected Contaminants
Contaminants Not Detected - 57 chemicals
1,1,1-Trichloroethane, 1,1,2-Trichloroethane, 1,1-Dichloroethylene, 1,2 Dibromo-3-chloropropane (DBCP), 1,2,4-Trichlorobenzene, 1,2-Dichloroethane, 1,2-Dichloropropane, 2,3,7,8-TCDD (Dioxin), 2,4,5-TP (Silvex), 2,4-d, Alachlor (Lasso), Alpha particle activity (excl radon and uranium), Atrazine, Benzene, Benzo[a]pyrene, Beryllium (total), Cadmium (total), Carbofuran, Carbon tetrachloride, Chlordane, Chromium (total), cis-1,2-Dichloroethylene, Combined Uranium (mg/L), Copper, Dalapon, Di(2-Ethylhexyl) adipate, Dichloromethane (methylene chloride), Dinoseb, Diquat, Endothall, Endrin, Ethylbenzene, Ethylene dibromide (EDB), Glyphosate, Heptachlor, Heptachlor epoxide, Hexachlorobenzene (HCB), Lindane, Mercury (total inorganic), Methoxychlor, Monochlorobenzene (Chlorobenzene), o-Dichlorobenzene, Oxamyl (Vydate), p-Dichlorobenzene, Pentachlorophenol, Picloram, Simazine, Styrene, Tetrachloroethylene, Thallium (total), Toluene, Total polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), Toxaphene, trans-1,2-Dichloroethylene, Trichloroethylene, Vinyl chloride, Xylenes (total)
|15||Total Contaminants Detected (2004 - 2009)|
Arsenic (total), Barium (total), Cyanide, Lead (total), Nitrate & nitrite, Nitrate, Nitrite, Selenium (total), Antimony (total), Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, Hexachlorocyclopentadiene, Total haloacetic acids (HAAs), Total trihalomethanes (TTHMs), Combined Radium (-226 & -228), Gross beta particle activity (pCi/L)
(pesticides, fertilizer, factory farms)
|7||Sprawl and Urban Pollutants|
(road runoff, lawn pesticides, human waste)
Arsenic (total), Barium (total), Cyanide, Lead (total), Nitrate & nitrite, Nitrate, Nitrite, Selenium (total), Antimony (total), Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, Hexachlorocyclopentadiene, Combined Radium (-226 & -228), Gross beta particle activity (pCi/L)
|3||Water Treatment and Distribution Byproducts|
(pipes and fixtures, treatment chemicals and byproducts)
(naturally present but increased for lands denuded by sprawl, agriculture, or industrial development)
EPA has not established a maximum legal limit in tapwater for these contaminants
EPA Violation Summary
|Violation Category||Number of Violations|
(click see violations)close
Information on violations is drawn directly from EPA's national violations database in the Agency's Safe Drinking Water Information System. Analyses by others have raised questions about the quality of the information in EPA's database. For the purposes of this investigation, EWG is not showing below or including in our analyses, those violations for individual water suppliers that occurred on days for which the total number of violations assigned by EPA to that water supplier was greater than 20. This criteria was based on common characteristics of incorrect violations data as identified by water utilities, from a review of EPA's violations data by several hundred utilities prior to the release of EWG's investigation.