Local Water Report · Houston, Texas · September 2026

Houston, Texas · September 2026

Southeast of Houston, the tap water turned green.

In mid-September, households in Webster, League City, Deer Park, Pasadena and Friendswood started posting photos of a greenish tint at the tap. Officials traced it to heavy rain from Tropical Storm Edouard stirring up the Trinity River, said the treated water met every standard — and the testing backed them up. But it sent a lot of families looking for something most have never actually seen: the testing record for the water system that serves their own street.

See your ZIP code's water report What happened

What the testing record shows

14

contaminants in Houston's water sit above the public-health guidelines researchers use.

Every one of them is inside the federal legal limit. Those are two different lines, and the distance between them is the reason this page exists.

~7,000
miles of water main under the city — about 850 of them replaced in the last decade, against a 2,800-mile industry pace.
Clear water filling a clear drinking glass
Houston tap water, as it looks. Every contaminant on the list above is colorless, odorless and invisible in the glass — which is exactly why it gets measured in a laboratory instead of judged by eye.
Substances tested142
14 above health guidelines 57 detected in total

The record

“Safe” and “nothing in it” are two different standards.

Households southeast of Houston started posting photos of greenish tap water in mid-September — noticeable in a bathtub, hard to see in a drinking glass. The explanation held up: storm turbidity in the raw river water, treated water still inside every regulatory limit. But the episode is a useful reminder that there are two different lines being measured. Federal law sets the line a utility may not cross. Public-health researchers set a stricter one for what's good to drink for thirty years. Houston is comfortably on the right side of the first line, and above the second one fourteen times over.

Your ZIP code

Houston is not one water system. It's dozens.

The city's own utility serves nearly three million people — and the suburbs around it buy water wholesale, blend it with their own wells, and report their own numbers. Enter your ZIP code to see the system that actually serves your street, what's been detected in it, and how each contaminant compares to public-health guidelines.

Your area City of Houston PWS ID TX1010013
14 Contaminants that exceed health guidelines
Population
2,970,543
Water source
Surface Water
Data available
2002–2026

Water report

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Figures come from the same public database behind the water report on clearbrookfilters.com, compiling federal EPA testing records and the EWG Tap Water Database. “Exceeds health guideline” means a contaminant was detected above the level public-health researchers consider protective over a lifetime — not that it exceeds a legal limit, and not that the water is unsafe.

Stay updated

That report will change. We'll tell you when.

Testing data updates quietly, advisories arrive after the fact, and nobody sends you either one. Join the list and we'll pass along what's worth knowing about drinking water — new Houston results and notices as they land, and what we learn at Clearbrook about contaminants, filtration and keeping a household's water clean.

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You're on the list.

You'll hear from us when Houston's water data moves, and now and then when we have something useful to say about keeping a household's water clean.

Why this matters tonight

Repairs are measured in decades. Your family drinks water today.

Even when a system meets every standard on average, there's a gap between “compliant” and “what my family drinks tonight.” Houston's own numbers show how long the fix takes.

01

You find out afterward

The green water was already in people's bathtubs before anyone explained why. Notices, advisories and reports all arrive after the water has been through the tap.

02

The pipes take a generation

About 850 miles of Houston's roughly 7,000 miles of main were replaced over the last decade — well short of the industry pace. Reporting has put the utility's funding gap in the billions.

03

The plant isn't your tap

Water can leave the purification plant meeting every standard and still travel miles of aging main and your building's own plumbing before it reaches your glass. The last mile is the one you control.

An excavated water main in a residential street, surrounded by traffic barrels
A distribution main opened up in a residential street. Illustration.
~1,600
Active leaks documented at one point in 2025

Investigative reporting found the utility fielding roughly 40 to 70 new leak work orders a day.

~41 days
Average wait before a reported leak was repaired

Reported by KPRC 2's investigation into the city's leak backlog, March 2025.

~32B gal
Water lost to the system in a single year

The city's public works director compared the annual loss to more water than the entire city of Fort Worth uses in a year.

850 mi
Of pipe replaced in a decade, against a 2,800-mile industry pace

Houston Chronicle and ABC13 reporting, 2024, on the scale of the replacement backlog.

A tree-lined residential street in Boulevard Oaks, Houston
Boulevard Oaks
The esplanade along Heights Boulevard in Houston
Heights Boulevard
Historic houses on State Street in the Old Sixth Ward, Houston
Old Sixth Ward

Three Houston streets, one shared last mile. Between the purification plant and every tap on these blocks: miles of main, a service line, and each building's own plumbing. Photos: Ed Uthman, Houston, Texas, USA — CC BY 3.0.

Where Clearbrook comes in

You can't fix 7,000 miles of pipe. You can handle the last three feet.

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The last mile

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  • Disinfection byproducts — the TTHMs and haloacetic acids that top Houston's above-guideline list are lab-tested at 99.8% and 99.98% removal.
  • Heavy metals — including arsenic and hexavalent chromium, both on Houston's list.
  • Storm resilience — gravity-fed means it still works when the power is out and the pressure is low.
  • Renters welcome — nothing is attached to the building. It moves when you do.
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A Clearbrook stainless steel gravity water filter system on a kitchen counter

Independently tested

Why gravity-fed holds up when the system doesn't.

No power required

It works through a storm, an outage, or a pressure loss — the same conditions that tend to change what's in the water.

No plumbing

Ten minutes to set up on a countertop. Nothing drilled, nothing attached, nothing to undo when you move.

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Years of filter life

Long-life elements mean the protection is continuous rather than something you have to remember every month.

The full Clearbrook range laid out on a kitchen island — under-sink dual housings, stainless gravity systems in several sizes, in-line filters, filter elements and connection hoses
The whole line, laid out: under-sink housings and in-line filters on the left, the stainless gravity systems through the middle, and the filter elements that do the actual work in front. Gravity or under the counter, the filtration is the same. Photography courtesy of Clearbrook Filters.

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Every glass in your home — handled.

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