Washington, MO Water Report

Washington's city water is VERY hard - about 16 grains per gallon - so you're fighting chalky scale on faucets and shower glass, film that won't rinse off your skin and hair, and a water heater that's quietly crusting over and dying years early. Iron at 0.43 mg/L runs over the federal guideline, which is what stains your sinks, tubs and laundry that orange-brown color and leaves a metallic taste. And while the city legally passes, the water carries combined radium at roughly 38x EWG's health guideline plus an active 2025 lead-service-line issue - one home in town tested over the lead limit. None of this is fearmongering: it's straight off the city's own 2025 report.

On a private well in Washington: Private wells in the Franklin County / Missouri River-bottom area typically run even harder (15-25+ gpg) and far higher iron (often 1-10 mg/L, 3-33x the guideline) causing orange staining and iron-bacteria slime. Deeper bedrock wells commonly have hydrogen sulfide "rotten egg" smell, naturally elevated radium from the Cambrian-Ordovician aquifer, plus nitrate from ag land and septic systems and coliform/E. coli risk after flooding. Wells are unregulated - nobody tests them but you.