Until 2020, Blue Grass drank its own well water at 320 to 440 mg/L — close to 26 grains at the top of that range. Iowa American bought the system in 2017 and finished a $1.6 million interconnect three years later, retiring three community wells. The water changed. If your softener was programmed before that, its settings did not.
| Blue Grass at a glance | What the record shows |
|---|---|
| Who delivers your water | Iowa American Water, Quad Cities District, PWSID IA8222001, 147,720 people served. The standalone Blue Grass system, PWSID IA8215021, was deactivated in EPA SDWIS on 2020-01-06. |
| Where it comes from | Mississippi River surface water treated at Iowa American's East River Station. Blue Grass's three community wells were retired in 2020. |
| Published hardness | 136–350 mg/L as CaCO3, or 7.9–20.4 grains per gallon, on the Quad Cities District supply Blue Grass now takes, per Iowa American's Quad Cities Typical Water Quality sheet (2019 data). The Blue Grass sheet for the retired wells still lists 320–440 mg/L, or 18.7–25.7 grains. |
| Softened at the plant | No. Neither the old Blue Grass wells nor the current Quad Cities supply has a softening step in its EPA SDWIS treatment records. |
Blue Grass has the clearest before-and-after water story in Scott County, and it is recent enough that plenty of local equipment predates it. Iowa American Water bought the town's water system in 2017 for $1.3 million. Three years later it finished a $1.6 million project running more than three miles of 12-inch main out from the Quad Cities distribution system, and on 2020-01-06 the EPA's SDWIS database marked the old Blue Grass system deactivated. The town changed water sources without anyone changing a thing inside their house.
The numbers moved a long way. Iowa American's Typical Water Quality sheet for Blue Grass, still posted at amwater.com/twq/bluegrass_twq.pdf, lists the old well supply at 320–440 mg/L as CaCO3 — 18.7 to 25.7 grains per gallon. The Quad Cities District sheet, for the system Blue Grass was connected to, lists 136–350 mg/L, or 7.9 to 20.4 grains. That is a real improvement. It is also a range rather than a single figure, because river water shifts with the season in a way the town's wells never did — three independent wells, 400 feet deep, drawing the Silurian-Devonian aquifer, per the Blue Grass sheet.
Hardness is the headline, but the two sheets differ in other ways worth knowing. The old Blue Grass supply was disinfected with free chlorine; the Quad Cities supply is treated with chloramines, which is the usual reason the taste reads differently than it used to. Sodium moves from an average 9.5 mg/L on the wells to 15.5 mg/L on river water, both listed as informational with no MCL.
A softener is programmed to a grain number, and everything it does — how much salt it draws, how often it regenerates, how many gallons it treats between cycles — follows from that one setting. A unit dialed in for the old Blue Grass well water and never touched since is running a regeneration schedule built for water that no longer comes out of the tap.
Day to day that looks boring and expensive: salt disappearing faster than it should, and regenerations firing on a calendar that no longer matches what the house uses. It is a short adjustment for someone who knows the published range. Our salt guide covers what a properly set softener should go through in a month.
The other half of the reset is honest math about whether the old unit is worth reprogramming at all. Softeners bought here before the interconnect were sized for the old well supply, and if yours dates to that era, the resin's condition is a bigger question than the setting. We will tell you which of those you are in before we quote anything.
A query of the EPA SDWIS treatment table for softening across every public water system ID beginning IA82 — all of Scott County — returns no community water system in the county that softens its water. The only hits are golf courses, campgrounds and mobile-home parks running their own point-of-entry units. Iowa American's East River Station does a great deal: coagulation and sedimentation, a Superpulsator, granular activated carbon, chloramines, fluoridation, phosphate corrosion control, and an $11 million UV system added in 2022. In all 26 of its SDWIS treatment records, there is no softening step.
So Blue Grass water got softer in 2020. It did not get soft. At 7.9 to 20.4 grains, it sits well inside the range where a softener earns its keep on an Iowa hardness map, and the same is true across that system, from Davenport to Bettendorf.
Every price below is all-in: equipment, installation, taxes, and a lifetime parts warranty. No separate labor line and no surprise at the end. Our softeners are built from NSF/ANSI 44 certified components and our reverse osmosis systems are certified to NSF/ANSI 58.
Financing is available at 0%, and there is a $100 discount for military and first responders. Or start with the instant quote, which takes about a minute.
Blue Grass is ringed by more small subdivision and HOA water systems than anywhere else in Scott County. Hickory Hills and its annexes, Timber Valley Estates, Revelle, Valley Heights, Rustic Oaks, Deer Valley, Timber Lake, Eagle Lane and Village Oaks are all still on Silurian wells, per the Iowa DNR Source Water Protection Tracker. If you are on one of those, or on a private well, the 2020 interconnect did not touch you.
None of those systems publishes a hardness figure of its own, and we will not quote you the old Blue Grass number in its place — different wells on the same aquifer are not the same water. That is exactly what a test at your own tap is for. The build is different too. Well systems run $3,450 for a dual-tank setup, or $3,800 with a tank RO. UV disinfection adds $700 and sediment pre-filtration adds $500, both well-only. Iron and sulfur we quote after your free water test rather than off a price list, because the right answer depends entirely on what your well is doing. Free well testing is the honest first step.
Kind Water Co is licensed and insured. Installs are handled by licensed local plumbing professionals we vet, schedule, and stand behind, so you are not left chasing a subcontractor afterward. We quote one all-in number, and we will tell you when you do not need the bigger system. In a town whose water improved in 2020, that matters more than usual.
The published range for the Quad Cities supply is 7.9 to 20.4 grains per gallon, which is wide. Your house sits at one number inside it, and an older softener is set to some other number. We test at your tap, read your equipment's settings, and tell you whether you are looking at a reset, a repair or a replacement. It is free and there is no obligation.
We cover the metro on the same schedule: Quad Cities, Davenport, Bettendorf, Walcott, Buffalo and surrounding Scott County towns.
Yes. Iowa American Water's Typical Water Quality sheet for the old Blue Grass wells lists 320–440 mg/L as CaCO3, or 18.7–25.7 grains per gallon. The Quad Cities District sheet, covering the system Blue Grass was connected to, lists 136–350 mg/L, or 7.9–20.4 grains. Both sheets are still posted at amwater.com/twq/, so you can compare them yourself.
If it was installed before 2020 and nobody has touched the settings since, almost certainly. A softener is programmed to a grain number, and one set for the old Blue Grass well supply will regenerate on a schedule built for water that no longer arrives. The usual symptom is salt disappearing faster than it should.
All three were retired in 2020. They were 400-foot community wells drawing the Silurian-Devonian aquifer, and Iowa American replaced them with a $1.6 million project running more than three miles of 12-inch main out from the Quad Cities distribution system. EPA SDWIS marked the standalone Blue Grass system, PWSID IA8215021, deactivated on 2020-01-06.
For most homes here, yes. The Water Quality Association's hardness scale calls anything above 7 grains per gallon hard, and above 10.5 grains very hard. The Quad Cities range published by Iowa American sits entirely above the first line and mostly above the second, and it moves seasonally with the river rather than holding one steady number.
Usually reprogramming, and it is a short adjustment for someone who knows the published range. The catch is age: a unit sized for the old well supply is old enough that the resin's condition matters more than the setting. A service visit is $199 to diagnose, or $99 for a known issue plus the part. A replacement softener is $2,500 all-in.
Every number on this page comes from a public record. Here is where to open each one yourself.
Whole-home water softening, filtration, and reverse-osmosis drinking water — professionally installed and built to last a lifetime.
Serving Marion, Cedar Rapids & surrounding Linn County communities
Kind Water Co is a d/b/a of Zero Cap Investments LLC · 2258 Bison St, Apt B, Marion, IA 52302
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