This $384 water filter has a cult following in L.A. But the EPA sees red flags

Katya Mosely remembers nan nonstop infinitesimal it each began, a fewer years ago. “It was my daughter’s soft teacher,” she says. “She had a 6-inch-long instrumentality of charcoal floating successful her solid h2o bottle. I saw it, and that’s what sent maine down nan rabbit hole.”

Mosely, nan proprietor of Spirit Gate Acupuncture & Wellness successful Mid City, was already utilizing a Brita to purify her pat water, but she wasn’t judge she trusted nan results. So down she went, spiraling heavy into nan world of charcoal-based filters, wherever she yet landed connected an odd-looking contraption pinch a friends name: The Berkey.

In L.A., h2o rules everything astir us. Drink up, cool disconnected and dive into our stories astir hydrating and recreating successful nan city.

A stainless-steel alloy that claims to region much impurities than better-known filters, nan modular Berkey is astir 20 inches gangly and looks a spot for illustration a transverse betwixt a Russian samovar and a decommissioned rocket casing. By comparison, a integrative fridge-dwelling Brita appears toy-like — a Huffy trike parked adjacent to a Tesla Cybertruck. The Berkey tin besides beryllium harder to support than different systems, pinch long-lasting filters that require periodic cleaning. And it’s much, much slower, taking hours to select a afloat 2.25-gallon tank.

Which is each to say, it was precisely what Mosely wanted. As a bonus, her Berkey now delivers much than conscionable clean, crisp-tasting h2o astatine work.

“People travel done my agency and spot it and springiness maine a small motion of acknowledgment. Like, ‘Oh, she knows what’s up. Look astatine her Big Berkey,’” she says, laughing.

The if-you-know-you-know entreaty of Berkey turns retired to beryllium 1 of its defining features present successful L.A., wherever its sanction tends to punctual 1 of 2 reactions: Either you’ve ne'er heard of it, aliases you’re obsessed. Maybe you’ve seen 1 astatine your GOOP-iest friend’s flat aliases astatine an replacement healthcare believe wherever caller treatment modalities are invited and plain-old pat h2o is perfectly not. Maybe you moreover noticed erstwhile nan trendsetting L.A. apparel marque Online Ceramics released a bootleg Berkey hoodie successful December, confirming nan filter’s position arsenic a benignant of concealed handshake for nan town’s Palo Santo-burning, quartz-collecting cognoscenti.

“I deliberation it’s celebrated because Britas are plastic. And integrative is becoming really not chic,” says Sabrina Lemus, a Los Feliz resident who jokingly self-describes arsenic “wellness-pilled” and keeps crystals nether her Berkey to complaint nan h2o pinch bully vibrations. “Plus, nan h2o conscionable tastes truthful good.”

Amie-Ray Bourget, an L.A.-based doula, loves her Berkey truthful overmuch that she uses it to repurify nan h2o that comes retired of her full-home filtration system. (“When it goes done nan Berkey, it’s conscionable other filtered and other bully for you,” she says.) Like galore fans I said to, Bourget and Lemus are some genuinely passionate astir cleanable surviving and besides speedy to ace a self-deprecating joke astir nan different lengths they’ll spell to execute it. Other Berkey owners lightheartedly referred to their ain h2o regimens arsenic “ridiculous,” “insane” and moreover “psycho.”

Berkey’s stronghold present successful L.A. makes consciousness The select taps into a potent substance of our preoccupations: cleanable living, h2o safety, sustainability, disaster preparedness and, crucially, attainable luxury (the mean Big Berkey retails astatine $384). But nan full, unfiltered account of Berkey’s emergence is simply a murkier tale, involving fights pinch nan Environmental Protection Agency and nan authorities of California, last day preppers and a right-wing media blitz. Berkey’s h2o whitethorn beryllium crystal clear; its story, connected nan different hand, is thing but.

It each started much than a 100 years ago, erstwhile a lethal cholera outbreak was ripping done nan German municipality of Hamburg. Untreated h2o was to blame, and an improbable leader emerged: Wilhelm Berkefeld, nan inventor of a ceramic instrumentality that helped purify nan city’s drinking h2o and trim nan epidemic’s decease toll. The Berkefeld filter, arsenic it was called, soon became celebrated extracurricular its autochthonal country. An updated type of it is still sold coming successful nan U.K., and nan North American distribution authorities were granted successful 1998 to an American institution pinch an opaque name: New Millennium Concepts Ltd. (NMCL).

When it arrived successful nan New World, Berkefeld was shortened to Berkey — but NMCL changed much than conscionable nan branding. They besides revamped nan select to incorporate “a tortuous maze of micropores” that helps to “address 200+ emblematic contaminants recovered successful pat water.”

In nan h2o purification world, there’s thing other rather for illustration it. “It’s benignant of its ain unsocial filter,” says Tasha Stoiber, a elder intelligence astatine Environmental Working Group, which has tested Berkey systems alongside different h2o filters. “In nan different ones, you person a replacement cartridge that you propulsion retired and switch it pinch another. With Berkey… it will past you years, astir six years, 7 years. What you do is you fundamentally scrub nan carbon, renewing nan surface.”

According to EWG’s research, Berkey’s filters are awesome astatine removing immoderate things (like PFAS, a.k.a. “forever chemicals”), and little awesome astatine excluding others (like hexavalent chromium and nitrates, carcinogens that were only partially reduced successful EWG’s tests).

Berkey’s different operation of functionality, durability and crunchy stylishness has made it a uncommon constituent of statement for groups that mightiness not different overlap. For each Westside wellness evangelist proudly displaying a Berkey astatine a plot party, there’s a disaster prepper who values nan select arsenic a bulwark against illness successful a post-apocalyptic world. On YouTube, channels pinch names for illustration Survival Living and LDSPrepper (LDS arsenic successful Church of Latter Day Saints) statement nan merits of nan strategy alongside reviews of state masks and star powerfulness systems.

Perhaps nan strangest portion of Berkey’s occurrence successful L.A. is nan institution won’t moreover waste nan Big Berkey successful California. (Though it does waste different products here.) In 2009, nan authorities of California enacted a rule aimed astatine protecting nan nationalist from lead successful drinking waters. In response, NMCL decided to simply trim California disconnected its distribution representation for definite products, including its flagship Big Berkey system. In a fiery statement, NMCL claimed that California’s caller requirements — for example, independent testing and certification for h2o filters — were acold excessively costly for a mini business. “The further taxes, certifications, reddish tape, registrations, on pinch nan disbursal of defending against activistic litigators, person created excessively costly a barrier,” they wrote, calling California’s actions “mercurial and punitive.’”

Then came an moreover bigger regulatory fight. In May 2023, nan U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a astonishing bid against Berkey International, halting nan waste aliases distribution of Black Berkey Filters. The bid said that nan filters are unregistered pesticides sold successful usurpation of nan Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act. The EPA’s reasoning hinges connected an highly method meaning of pesticides (which it calls “any constituent … intended for preventing, destroying, repelling aliases mitigating immoderate pest” — including microorganisms) and Berkey’s usage of metallic arsenic an antimicrobial successful nan filters themselves. The EPA sent a akin bid to immoderate — but not each — of Berkey’s authorized dealers, leaving Berkey fans to scour nan net for disposable inventory.

If you find each of this somewhat puzzling, subordinate nan club.

“I deliberation it will beryllium beautiful confusing to nan wide nationalist of why thing for illustration that mightiness beryllium registered arsenic a pesticide,” says Stoiber, who notes that nan EWG won’t remark connected Berkey’s ineligible situation. “I’m not judge why it’s an rumor pinch this institution and not different companies, either.” (Other celebrated h2o filters besides tout metallic arsenic an antimicrobial agent; to my knowledge, nary of them are presently fighting nan EPA complete it.)

Berkey isn’t taking immoderate of this lightly. In a suit revenge against nan EPA this March, Berkey International asked for a restraining bid connected nan EPA’s ruling, and based on that nan agency’s “classification of Berkey filters arsenic a pesticide is arbitrary, capricious, an maltreatment of discretion, and constitutes a clear error.” (Berkey’s original suit has since been dismissed, starring nan institution to appeal and record an further lawsuit.) On its charismatic website, Berkey made an moreover bolder allegation: “We person been informed that nan existent rumor is that because of Covid-19, nan EPA does not for illustration nan truth that Berkey filters are tin of removing microorganism from your water.” (When contacted for comment, an EPA rep told nan Times that nan “EPA cannot supply further accusation connected ongoing enforcement actions, and that nan [Stop Sale, Use, aliases Removal Orders] should speak for themselves.”)

Following nan EPA order, NMCL CEO Jim Shepherd besides decided to return his communicative to nan media — aliases astatine least, 1 circumstantial area of it. In September, he discussed nan lawsuit astatine magnitude successful an online video pinch Mike Adams, a.k.a. “The Health Ranger” whose arguable media brand, Natural News, has been known to people conspiracy theories and disinformation. In different interview, Shepherd chats pinch Emerald Robinson, an ultraconservative TV big who was let go from Newsmax aft tweeting astir a imaginable satanic relationship to COVID vaccines. Shepherd moreover has a amazingly powerful governmental state successful his fight. In October, Republican Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz — a Trump loyalist champion known for starring nan complaint to unseat erstwhile House Speaker Kevin McCarthy — penned a missive to nan EPA, boldly demanding that nan agency “must extremity its onslaught connected Berkey Water Systems immediately.” As of today, nan EPA has yet to publically respond.

Unsurprisingly, Berkey’s biggest fans are filtering retired each this noise. Many of nan group I said to for this communicative were wholly unaware of Berkey’s ineligible woes, moreover arsenic they’ve jumped done hoops to way down Berkey components online. Some of them moreover cognize group who person traveled crossed authorities lines to prime up a Berkey strategy astatine a non-California address.

Even if they do cognize astir Berkey’s battles, this crowd tends to enactment focused connected their ain journeys toward healthier surviving and cleaner water. Jessica Frank, laminitis of nan L.A.-made, eco-friendly kids’ clothing marque Fairwell, says that while she’s “as wide arsenic they come,” she besides supports Berkey’s conflict against nan EPA. “I’m each astir ‘live and fto live,’ ” she said. “Berkey is not hurting anybody. And of each nan h2o systems I’ve tried, I emotion it much than anything.”

In fact, she likes it truthful overmuch that she moreover gives it to her cat, Guava Kombucha, and her unsighted 11-year-old rabbit, Marshmallow, who has free tally of nan house. But she does tie a statement astatine her 7 Silkie chickens.

“They don’t get Berkey water, conscionable regular water,” she says, earlier laughing and admitting: “With a small pome cider vinegar and oregano lipid successful it.”