Whole House Water Softeners in Dallas

Dallas treats its own water at three plants, and the plants do not all drink from the same lakes. A December 1, 2023 memorandum from the city to a council committee lays it out: the East Side plant in Sunnyvale draws from lakes Ray Hubbard, Tawakoni and Fork, while the Elm Fork and Bachman plants receive water from lakes Ray Roberts, Lewisville and Grapevine by way of the Elm Fork of the Trinity River. A 2014 presentation by the utility put the plants at 150 million gallons a day for Bachman, 320 for Elm Fork and 440 for East Side, a total the presentation rounds to 900, and the utility's FY25 fact sheet still gives 900 million gallons a day as the system's treatment capacity. East Side went up in 1962 as a 100 million gallon plant and had ozone added in 2004. All three plants use lime and iron sulfate to settle out solids, and the utility describes the finished water as non-corrosive. The 2014 presentation adds plant-level detail: East Side's raw water supply was rated at 565 million gallons a day at peak and 250 on an annual average, its expansion added 64 million gallons of clearwell storage and a 150 million gallon a day pump station that can be enlarged to 300, and a source-to-tap study begun in 2006 into colored water led to water quality improvement contracts at all three plants in 2010. Elm Fork earned the EPA Director's Certificate under the Partnership for Safe Water in June 1998, and the FY25 fact sheet records a maximum day of 562.45 million gallons on July 30, 2025 against a record of 789.6 million on September 4, 2000.

The memorandum answers the hardness question in one line: Dallas's water hardness runs from 120 to 155 mg/L as calcium carbonate. Divided by 17.1, that is about 7 to about 9 grains per gallon. On the USGS scale 120 is the last point of moderately hard and 121 begins hard, so all but the lowest reading in that range is hard water. The figure covers the whole system, and the memorandum gives no sampling dates. Dallas used to print a hardness row in its annual report, and those older rows show how far a blend of six reservoirs can move from one year to the next: the 1998 report gave an average of 98 ppm in a range of 70 to 155, the 1999 report 143 in a range of 99 to 187, the 2000 report 131 in a range of 108 to 179, and the 2003 report 119 mg/L in a range of 92 to 167, printed beside sodium at 36 mg/L and total alkalinity at 68. The 2000 report described the water as moderately hard; the 2023 memorandum answers the question with a plain yes.

At a Dallas tap the open question is which plant's water you are drinking, and the utility does not answer it with a plant-by-plant hardness figure. Its 2025 report gives one set of results for all three plants together, and that table no longer carries a hardness row at all; the only secondary constituents it lists are aluminum and manganese. A home on East Side's Ray Hubbard and Tawakoni water and a home on Bachman's Elm Fork water are both covered by the same 120 to 155 range, and the swings in the old reports suggest the number at any one address is not fixed through the year either. For a softener that means sizing to the top of the range, about 9 grains per gallon, rather than the middle, and letting the free water test give you the exact figure at your own kitchen tap on the day.

Sources: City of Dallas memorandum, December 1, 2023, Community Water Fluoridation follow-up · Dallas Water Utilities, East Side Water Treatment Plant expansion presentation · Dallas Water Utilities FY25 Fact Sheet · Dallas Water Utilities, Water Quality Information · City of Dallas 1998 Water Quality Report · City of Dallas 1999 Water Quality Report · City of Dallas 2000 Water Quality Report · City of Dallas 2003 Water Quality Report · City of Dallas 2025 Water Quality Report