Water filter service in Union City, NJ

What is in the water in Union City

Union City is served by Veolia Water New Jersey, Hackensack system .

Source water: A linked chain of reservoirs, most of them well north of Hudson County. Oradell, Woodcliff Lake and Lake Tappan sit in Bergen County and Lake DeForest sits across the state line in Rockland County, New York. Lake DeForest and Lake Tappan are on the upper Hackensack River, Woodcliff Lake is on the Pascack Brook, and Oradell is fed by both. Together they hold roughly 14 billion gallons across nearly 6,000 acres and send about 98 million gallons a day for more than 885,000 people in Bergen and Hudson counties. Hudson County boundaries here are sharper than they look: Union City and West New York are on this system, while Hoboken next door is not and takes the Jersey City supply from Boonton instead. Reported by Veolia Water New Jersey for 2023.

Everything is treated at one plant, at Haworth, and its process is not the conventional one. Primary disinfection is by ozone rather than chlorine, and clarification is by high rate dissolved air flotation rather than settling. Sulfuric acid and sodium hydroxide set the pH, zinc orthophosphate is dosed as a corrosion inhibitor to hold lead and copper back from household plumbing, and the water leaves carrying a small amount of chloramine as its residual. The chloramine is the part that reaches your tap and shapes equipment choice: it needs catalytic carbon or a long contact time rather than a standard cartridge, and a softener on this supply should use chloramine resistant resin.

These figures describe the distribution system. Your own tap can differ, and for lead it very likely does.

We do not yet hold a sourced figure for every field on this page. Where something is missing it is left blank rather than estimated, because an unsourced number here would look like information.

Buildings and plumbing in Union City

A three year programme costing 100 million dollars, running six days a week across 47 municipalities, removed close to 5,000 lead service lines. The 90th percentile lead result fell from 18.4 parts per billion in late 2018 to 6.1, against an action level of 15. No lead is detected in water leaving the plant, and the company has committed to removing every company owned lead line. What the falling number does not cover is the private side and the fixtures inside dense older Hudson County buildings, where the zinc orthophosphate film is doing the work. A film protects a pipe while water moves; water that has stood in a line overnight still picks up more, which is why running the tap before drawing for drinking matters more here than the system figure suggests.

What this means in practice

• Chlorine and chloramine taste. Confirm with free and total chlorine test strip, plus the utility report for the disinfectant type.
• Lead in drinking water. Confirm with certified laboratory analysis of a first-draw tap sample.

What these figures mean for filter choice

Because the disinfectant here is chloramine rather than free chlorine, filter choice matters more than usual. Chloramine needs a longer contact time than standard activated carbon gives it, and catalytic carbon performs considerably better at the same cartridge size. A filter sized for free chlorine is the most common reason people conclude that filters do not work.

Lead is a plumbing question rather than a supply question in Union City, as it is everywhere. What that means practically is that a filter certified under NSF/ANSI 53 for lead at the tap you drink from sits downstream of the entire problem, whereas a whole-house filter at the point of entry sits upstream of nearly all of it and costs several times more.

Filters that apply here

• Lead reduction filters. Point-of-use filters certified for lead under NSF/ANSI 53.
• Under-sink carbon filters. A carbon block cartridge on the cold line under the sink.
• Reverse osmosis, tank. A membrane system under the sink that produces treated water to a dedicated tap and stores it in a small pressure tank.
• Whole-house filtration. A filter plumbed into the main line where water enters the building, so every tap, shower, and appliance downstream is fed treated water.
• Sediment filters. A mechanical filter that captures sand, silt, rust flakes, and other particles.

Installation in Union City

• Free water testing. Typically 45 to 60 minutes.
• Whole-house filter installation. Typically 3 to 5 hours.
• Under-sink reverse osmosis installation. Typically 2 to 4 hours.
• Repair, any brand. Typically 1 to 3 hours.

Renters, co-ops, and businesses

• Options for renters
• Co-ops and condos
• Offices and commercial sites

Nearby areas

• Jersey City, NJ , Hudson County
• Bayonne, NJ , Hudson County
• Newark, NJ , Essex County
• Bloomfield, NJ , Essex County
• East Orange, NJ , Essex County
• Elizabeth, NJ , Union County

Sources

• Veolia Water New Jersey, 2023.
• Veolia Water New Jersey, 2024.
• Population: US Census Bureau sub-county population estimates, Vintage 2024 (POPESTIMATE2024).