Know What's in Your Water.
Search your ZIP code to find your water utility, understand the key contaminants in your area, and see matched treatment options — built from official EPA data.
Common Concerns
What Are People Worried About?
These contaminants appear most frequently in U.S. public water systems and generate the most consumer questions.
PFAS
PFAS are a group of thousands of man-made chemicals that have been used in industrial and consumer products since the 1940s. They do not break down in the environment or the human body, earning the name 'forever chemicals.' In April 2024, the EPA set the first-ever federal limits for six PFAS compounds in drinking water.
Lead
Lead enters drinking water primarily through corrosion of lead service lines and lead-containing plumbing fixtures — not typically from the water source itself. There is no safe level of lead exposure for children. The EPA is revising its Lead and Copper Rule to eliminate lead service lines nationwide by 2037.
Nitrates
Nitrates are colorless, odorless compounds that occur naturally in soil but reach dangerous levels in water primarily from agricultural fertilizer runoff and septic system leakage. They pose a serious risk to infants under 6 months, who can develop methemoglobinemia (blue baby syndrome). The EPA MCL is 10 mg/L as nitrogen.
DBPs
Disinfection byproducts form when chlorine or other disinfectants react with naturally occurring organic matter in source water. The two main regulated groups are total trihalomethanes (TTHMs) and haloacetic acids (HAA5). They are an unavoidable tradeoff of water disinfection — the risk of not disinfecting far outweighs the risk of DBPs, but minimizing exposure is prudent.
How WUR Works
From ZIP Code to Answer
Enter your ZIP code
We match your ZIP to your likely public water utility using EPA service-area data.
See what's in your water
We surface the key contaminants detected, their levels, and what they mean in plain English.
Understand your options
Matched treatment guidance, official report links, certified labs, and clear next steps.
Treatment Guidance
Find the Right Filter
Not all filters solve all problems. Matched treatment guides tell you exactly what each technology removes.
Reverse Osmosis
Reverse osmosis (RO) is the most comprehensive point-of-use water treatment technology available for residential use. It removes 90–99% of dissolved contaminants including PFAS, lead, arsenic, nitrates, and disinfection byproducts by forcing water through a semi-permeable membrane with pores of approximately 0.0001 microns.
Addresses:
Activated Carbon
Activated carbon is the most widely used residential water treatment technology. It removes chlorine, taste and odor compounds, disinfection byproducts, many volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and — with NSF/ANSI 53 certification — lead and some PFAS. It is available as pitcher filters, under-sink units, and whole-house systems.
Addresses:
Water Softener
A salt-based water softener is the standard whole-home solution for hard water. It uses ion exchange to replace dissolved calcium and magnesium — the minerals responsible for scale, soap scum, and appliance damage — with sodium ions. Softeners protect plumbing and appliances but do not address health-based contaminants.
Addresses:
Built on Official Data
What We Use and What We Won't
Water Utility Report is built entirely on official U.S. government datasets and public regulatory records. We do not scrape competitor databases, republish third-party certification data without authorization, or publish content that hasn't been reviewed for legal and scientific accuracy.
Every data point preserves its source provenance, ingestion date, and confidence level. We separate what the data says from what it means — and we tell you which is which.
Read our full methodologyEPA SDWIS/ECHO datasets
Core utility and violation data
Consumer Confidence Reports
Annual CCR data from utilities
EPA Water Quality Portal
Supporting sampling data
State regulatory datasets
Where terms allow public use
Ready to check your water?
Enter your ZIP code to find your utility and see what's been detected in your area.