Bondurant is planning to go back to its own water. Today the city buys all of its water from Des Moines Water Works, and in July 2025 its plan to “reestablish its water supply and treatment facilities that it abandoned in 2001” cleared environmental review. The first number from that plan is already in the state database: a raw sample from the new Well #7 tested at 410 mg/L of hardness, about 24 grains per gallon. No switch date has been announced. This page covers what you drink now, what the new well shows so far, and how to make a water decision in the middle of the change.
| Bondurant at a glance | What the record shows |
|---|---|
| Who supplies the water | Bondurant Muni Water Supply, PWSID IA7717032, 9,393 people served (EPA SDWIS). All of it is bought from Des Moines Water Works through one connection, IA7727031 |
| Treated in Bondurant | Nothing today. EPA lists no active treatment records for the city; its two old plants are inactive and its four old wells are plugged |
| Softened at the plant | Yes, for now, by the supplier. Des Moines Water Works lime-softens at Fleur Drive and McMullen and states a hardness goal of under 150 mg/L, or 8.76 grains |
| The plan | Three new wells, No. 5, No. 6 and No. 7, in the Skunk River Valley, a raw water main and new treatment facilities, per the city's Finding of No Significant Impact dated 11 July 2025 (state loan FS-77-25-DWSRF-016) |
| First new-well reading | Well #7: 410 mg/L hardness (about 24.0 gpg), 1.1 mg/L nitrate as N, 12 mg/L sodium. One raw special sample, 17 June 2026, from a well not yet in service |
Before 2001, Bondurant ran its own water system: four alluvial wells in the Skunk River Valley and its own treatment plants. The city then moved to Des Moines Water Works and let the local system go. Those four wells are listed as plugged in state records, both old plants are inactive, and a second supply connection, from Southeast Polk Rural Water District, has been closed since 2010. The sample history backs up the 2001 date: the last samples of the city's own treated well water run to October 2000, and the first Des Moines Water Works sample in the record is from January 2001.
The most recent hardness numbers in Bondurant's own distribution record come from the early Des Moines Water Works years, 2003 to 2006, and ran 128 to 161 mg/L, roughly 7.5 to 9.4 grains. They are two decades old, so treat them as history, but they sit close to the supplier's stated goal and they are the only distribution-system hardness readings we found for Bondurant in the state portal.
The environmental finding is plain about the reasoning. The city looked at the option of joining Central Iowa Water Works, the regional authority that took ownership of the Des Moines Water Works plants on 1 January 2025, and chose its own wells and plant instead because of the lower all-in unit cost. It is also building for growth. The Census estimates Bondurant at 9,511 people in 2024, up from a 2020 base of 7,401, an increase of more than 2,100 in four years, and the plan is designed for a population equivalent of about 17,500 by 2045.
So the source under your tap is set to change from treated river water to local groundwater. Des Moines Water Works draws on the Raccoon and Des Moines rivers; the new Bondurant wells tap the sand and gravel of the Skunk River Valley, the same kind of aquifer the town used before 2001.
The Well #7 result is real and useful, but read it carefully. It is one special sample of raw water, taken on 17 June 2026 from a well the state lists as not yet in service. Raw means before any treatment at all. It tells you the alluvium under Bondurant carries hard water, 410 mg/L or about 24 grains per gallon, which is more than two and a half times the Des Moines Water Works goal. It does not tell you what will come out of your tap after the switch. That depends on the treatment the new plant uses, and the environmental finding does not name the process.
The same sample showed 1.1 mg/L of nitrate as N, against the federal limit of 10 mg/L, and 12 mg/L of sodium. Those are raw-well numbers too, from the same single sample, and they will be worth comparing with the city's first annual report on the new supply.
If you buy a softener in Bondurant this year, you are sizing it for Des Moines Water Works water, and you may be running it on different water in a few years. That is no reason to live with scale and spotty dishes in the meantime, but it is a reason to buy from someone who will retest. Our annual service includes a water test, so once the city changes source we measure your water again and reset the softener to the new reading.
Tell us you are in Bondurant when you book. We will size with the change in mind, show you the numbers either way, and note your current reading so the before-and-after comparison is there when the new supply comes online.
Every price here is all-in: equipment, installation, taxes and a lifetime parts warranty.
Annual service is $199 a year for a tank-RO home and $249 for tankless, water test included. A diagnostic call is $199; a known-issue trip is $99 plus the part. Financing is 0%, military and first responders take $100 off, and travel is free for the first 50 miles, then $1 a mile, quoted before we come out. Installs are done by licensed local plumbing professionals we vet, schedule and stand behind. Get a ballpark from the instant quote, or request a written quote.
Outside the city mains, homes around Bondurant draw private wells, and a private well owner is their own water utility. Polk County's Environmental Health Services offers free drinking water testing to private well users in Polk County, covering coliform, E. coli, nitrate, arsenic and manganese, so start there for the health tests. Our free in-home test covers the other side of the picture: hardness, iron and total dissolved solids, the readings that size a softener or an iron system.
Our well water setup is a dual-tank system at $3,450, or $3,800 with tank RO, with sediment pre-filtration at $500 and UV at $700 as add-ons. On a well we fit tank RO, never tankless, because high dissolved solids cost a tankless unit its pressure. Our guide to free well water testing in Iowa covers the rest.
We are licensed and insured, our prices are published and the same for every household, and we tell you what the record does and does not show. In a town whose water source is about to change, that means a test now, a retest later, and no pretending we know the new plant's numbers before the city does.
Test on today's water now, and again after the switch. We come to you, measure hardness, iron and total dissolved solids at your kitchen sink, and leave the readings and a written quote with you whether or not you buy. Book your free in-home water test.
Altoona · Ankeny · Des Moines · Polk City · Polk County
All of it is bought from Des Moines Water Works. The city’s July 2025 environmental finding says so directly, and EPA’s record shows a single active connection from Des Moines Water Works (IA7727031) and no active treatment in Bondurant itself. The supplier lime-softens the water before it reaches the city.
The city is planning to. Its Finding of No Significant Impact, dated 11 July 2025, describes reestablishing the water supply and treatment facilities it abandoned in 2001, with three new wells, No. 5, No. 6 and No. 7, in the Skunk River Valley. No date for the switch has been announced.
Nobody can say yet. The only reading from the new wells is one raw sample from Well #7, taken 17 June 2026 before the well entered service: 410 mg/L of hardness, about 24.0 grains per gallon. Finished hardness depends on the treatment the new plant uses, and the city’s environmental finding does not name the process.
No current figure is published for Bondurant. Des Moines Water Works, which supplies all of the city’s water, states a goal of under 150 mg/L, or 8.76 grains. The most recent hardness results in Bondurant’s own distribution record are from 2003 to 2006 and ran 128 to 161 mg/L. A free in-home test measures the water at your sink.
You do not have to. A softener is set from your hardness reading, so what matters is that it gets retested. Our annual service includes a water test, and once the city changes source we measure again and reset the system to the new reading. If hard water is bothering you now, there is no need to put up with it until the switch.
A Kind Water Co softener with whole-home carbon filtration is $2,500 all-in, including equipment, installation, taxes and a lifetime parts warranty, or $2,850 with reverse osmosis. The XL build is $2,800, or $3,150 with RO. Softeners use NSF/ANSI 44 certified components and RO systems are certified to NSF/ANSI 58. Financing is 0%, with $100 off for military and first responders.
Every number on this page comes from a public record. Here is where to open each one yourself.
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