Katya Mosely remembers the exact moment it all started, a few years ago. “I was my daughter’s piano teacher,” she says. “She had a 15-centimeter piece of coal floating in her glass water bottle. I saw it, and that’s what tipped me off.”
Mosely, the owner of Spirit Gate Acupuncture and Wellness In Mid City, she was already using a Brita filter to purify her tap water, but she wasn't sure she could trust the results. So she delved into the world of carbon-based filters, where she eventually found a strange-looking contraption with a cute name: The Berkey.
In Los Angeles, water is all around us. Drink up, cool off, and dive into our stories about hydration and recreation in the city.
The standard Berkey, a stainless steel container that claims to remove more impurities than most popular filters, is nearly 20 inches tall and looks like a cross between a Russian samovar and a decommissioned missile casing. By comparison, a plastic Brita stored in the refrigerator looks like a toy — a Huffy tricycle parked next to a Tesla Cybertruck. The Berkey can also be harder to maintain than other systems, since it has long-lasting filters that require periodic cleaning. And it’s a lot more complicated. a lot slower, taking hours to filter a full 2.25 gallon tank.
All in all, it was exactly what Mosely wanted. Plus, his Berkey now provides him with more than just clean, fresh water at work.
“People come into my office, see her, and give me a little nod of recognition. Like, ‘Oh, she knows what’s up. Look at her Big Berkey,’” he says, laughing.
Berkey's you-know-you-already-know appeal happens to be one of his defining characteristics here in Los Angeles, where his name tends to elicit one of two reactions: either you've never heard of him, or you're obsessedMaybe you've seen one in your GOOP bestie's apartment or at an alternative healthcare practice where new healing modalities are welcome and plain old tap water is not at all. Maybe you even noticed when trendsetting Los Angeles clothing brand Online Ceramics launched a Berkey Pirate Hoodie in December, confirming the filter's status as a sort of secret handshake for the city's Palo Santo-burning, quartz-collecting connoisseurs.
“I think it’s popular because Britas are made of plastic. And plastic is becoming more and more popular.” In fact “It’s not fancy,” says Sabrina Lemus, a Los Feliz resident who jokingly describes herself as “a wellness junkie” and who keeps crystals under her Berkey to charge the water with good vibes. “Plus, the water tastes great.”
“I think it’s popular because Britas are plastic, and plastic isn’t as stylish anymore.”
— Sabrina Lemus, Los Feliz resident
Amie-Ray Bourget, a doula in Los Angeles, loves her Berkey so much that she uses it to repurify the water coming out of her whole-house water filtration system. (“When it goes through the Berkey, it’s extra filtered and extra good for you,” she says.) Like many fans I spoke to, Bourget and Lemus are genuinely passionate about clean living, and also make self-deprecating jokes about the unusual lengths they go to achieve it. Other Berkey owners humorously referred to their own water regimens as “ridiculous,” “insane,” and even “psychopathic.”
Berkey's strength here in Los Angeles makes sense The filter taps into a potent mix of our concerns: clean living, water security, sustainability, disaster preparedness, and, crucially, attainable luxury (the average Big Berkey sells for $384). But the complete, Without filter The story of Berkey's rise is murkier, involving fights with the Environmental Protection Agency and the state of California, doomsday preppers and a right-wing media campaign. Berkey's waters may be crystal clear, but his story, on the other hand, is not.
It all began over a hundred years ago, when a deadly outbreak of cholera was ravaging the German city of Hamburg. Untreated water was to blame, and an unlikely hero emerged: Wilhelm Berkefeld, the inventor of a ceramic device that helped purify the city's drinking water and reduce the number of victims of the epidemic. The Berkefeld filter, as it was called, soon became famous outside its country of origin. An updated version of it is still sold today in the United Kingdom, and the distribution rights in North America were granted in 1998 to a little-known American company: New Millennium Concepts Ltd. (NMCL).
When it arrived in the New World, Berkefeld was shortened to Berkey, but NMCL changed more than just the brand name. It also revamped the filter to contain “a tortuous labyrinth of micropores” that helps “address more than 200 typical contaminants found in tap water.”
In the world of water purification, there is nothing like it. “It's kind of a unique filter,” says Tasha Stoiber, a senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group, which has Berkey Systems Tested Along with other water filters. “In the others, you have a replacement cartridge that you throw away and replace with another one. With Berkey… it lasts for years, about six years, seven years. What you’re doing is basically scrubbing the carbon, renewing the surface.”
According to EWG’s research, Berkey filters are great at removing some things (like PFAS, aka “forever chemicals”), and less good at excluding others (like hexavalent chromium and nitrates, carcinogens that were only partially reduced in EWG’s tests).
The Berkey’s unusual combination of functionality, durability, and crisp style has made it a rare point of agreement for otherwise mismatched groups. For every Westside wellness evangelist proudly displaying a Berkey at a garden party, there’s a disaster prepper who values the filter as a bulwark against disease in a post-apocalyptic world. On YouTube, channels with names like Survival Living and LDSPrepper (LDS as in Church of Latter Day Saints) debate the system’s merits alongside reviews of gas masks and solar power systems.
Perhaps the strangest part of Berkey's success in Los Angeles is that the company doesn't even sell the Big Berkey in California (although it does sell other products here). In 2009, the state of California enacted a law intended to protect the public from lead in drinking water. In response, NMCL decided to simply exclude California from its distribution map for certain products, including its flagship Big Berkey system. In a strongly worded statement, NMCL reclaimed that California’s new requirements (for example, independent testing and certification for water filters) were too expensive for a small business. “Additional taxes, certifications, bureaucracy, and registrations, along with the expense of defending against activist litigants, have created an overly costly barrier,” they wrote, calling California’s actions “fickle and punitive.”
Then came an even bigger regulatory fight. In May 2023, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a surprising order against Berkey International, halting the sale or distribution of Black Berkey filters. The order said the filters are unregistered pesticides being sold in violation of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act. The EPA’s reasoning is based on an extremely technical definition of pesticides (which it calls “any substance… intended to prevent, destroy, repel, or mitigate any pest,” including microorganisms) and Berkey’s use of silver as an antimicrobial in the filters themselves. The EPA sent a similar order to some, but not all, of Berkey’s authorized distributors, leaving Berkey fans scouring the internet for available inventory.
If all this sounds a little confusing to you, join the club.
“I think it will be pretty confusing to the general public as to why something like this would be registered as a pesticide,” says Stoiber, who notes that EWG will not comment on Berkey’s legal status. “I’m not sure why it’s an issue with this company and not with other companies either.” (Other popular water filters also tout silver as an antimicrobial agent; as far as I know, none of them are currently fighting the EPA over it.)
Berkey isn't taking any of this lightly. In a lawsuit filed against the EPA in March, Berkey International asked for a restraining order on the EPA's decision, arguing that the agency's “classification of Berkey filters as pesticides is arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, and constitutes clear error.” (Berkey's original lawsuit has since been dismissed, prompting the company to appeal and file an additional claim.) On his official website, Berkey made an even bolder statement. allegation:“We have been informed that the real problem is that due to Covid-19, the EPA does not like the fact that Berkey filters are capable of removing the virus from water.” (When contacted for comment, an EPA representative told the Times that the “EPA cannot provide further information on ongoing enforcement actions and that the [Stop Sale, Use, or Removal Orders] should speak for themselves.”)
Following the EPA order, NMCL CEO Jim Shepherd also decided to take his story to the media—or at least, a specific sector of it. In September, he discussed the case in depth in an online video with Mike Adams, aka “The Health Ranger,” whose controversial media brand, Natural News, is known for publishing conspiracy theories and misinformation. In another interview, Shepherd chats with Emerald Robinson, an ultraconservative TV host who was fired from Newsmax after tweeting about a possible Satanic connection to COVID vaccines. Shepherd even has a surprisingly powerful political ally in his fight. In October, Florida Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz, a Trump loyalist best known for leading the charge to oust former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, wrote A letter to the EPAboldly demanding that the agency “must end its attack on Berkey Water Systems immediately.” To this day, the EPA has yet to respond publicly.
Unsurprisingly, Berkey's biggest fans are filtering out all this noise. Many of the people I spoke to for this article were completely unaware of Berkey's legal troubles, even though they've had to go to all sorts of lengths to find Berkey components online. Some of them even know people who have traveled across state lines to pick up a Berkey system at an address outside of California.
Berkey doesn't hurt anyone and of all the water systems I've tried, I like this one the best.
—Jessica Frank, Founder of Fairwell
While they are aware of Berkey’s battles, these people tend to focus on their own paths to healthier living and cleaner water. Jessica Frank, founder of the eco-friendly children’s clothing brand Fairwell, made in Los Angeles, says that while she is “as liberal as anyone,” she also supports Berkey’s fight against the EPA. “I’m all for ‘live and let live,’” she said. “Berkey isn’t hurting anyone. And of all the water systems I’ve tried, I like it the best.”
In fact, she likes it so much that she even gives it to her cat, Guava Kombucha, and her 11-year-old blind rabbit, Marshmallow, who is free to roam around the house. But she doesn't want to have to feed her seven Silkie chickens.
“They don’t get Berkey water, just regular water,” he says, before laughing and admitting, “With a little bit of apple cider vinegar and oregano oil.”
