Camanche's tap water now comes from far deeper than it did a few years ago. The city's 2021 water quality report credits shallow Well 6, drilled 164 feet into a sand-and-gravel aquifer, with 73.53% of the 112.8 million gallons it lists. Today deep Well 5, drilled in 1986 to 1,290 feet in the Cambrian-Ordovician aquifer, is the only well EPA's Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS) lists as active. Its entry point tested at 310 mg/L of hardness, about 18.1 grains per gallon, on March 31, 2025, and SDWIS lists no softening step. Two new wells were still listed as pending at their last Iowa DNR samples in October 2025, so the reading at your own kitchen sink is the one to set a softener by.
We install water softeners, whole-home carbon filtration and reverse osmosis drinking-water systems in Camanche homes, and we build complete well systems for houses on private wells outside city service. We also repair and maintain equipment that is already installed, including brands we did not sell; see our Quad Cities softener repair guide. Installation is done by licensed local plumbing professionals we vet, schedule, and stand behind. Kind Water Co is family-owned, founded in 2021, based in Marion, and licensed and insured.
The free in-home water test happens at your kitchen sink and measures hardness, iron and total dissolved solids, the readings that decide how a softener or reverse osmosis system is set up. In Camanche those readings fill a gap: the Iowa DNR portal holds one entry-point hardness sample for Well 5 and no entry-point or distribution result for total dissolved solids. The test does not cover bacteria, nitrate, arsenic, lead or PFAS, which need a certified laboratory. Travel is $1 a mile beyond the first 50 miles from Marion, and Camanche sits past that line, so we quote the mileage before you agree to anything. Book the free in-home water test or start with an instant quote.
| Camanche at a glance | What the record shows |
|---|---|
| Who supplies the water | Camanche Water Supply, PWSID IA2322066, a community water system owned by local government: 4,570 people served through 1,492 service connections, per EPA SDWIS. |
| Where it comes from | Groundwater. Deep Well 5, drilled in 1986 to 1,290 feet in the Cambrian-Ordovician aquifer (Iowa DNR Source Water Protection Tracker), is the only well SDWIS lists as active. |
| Softened at the plant? | No. SDWIS holds 10 treatment records, all disinfection or corrosion control, and a query for a softening objective returns nothing. |
| Published hardness | 310 mg/L (18.1 gpg) at the Well 5 entry point, a single Iowa DNR sample taken March 31, 2025. The city's 2020 to 2025 water quality reports print no hardness figure. |
The Iowa DNR Source Water Protection Tracker lists seven Camanche wells, a mix of shallow alluvial (sand-and-gravel) wells and deep Cambrian-Ordovician (sandstone-and-dolomite) wells:
A newer Well 8, sampled in October 2025, is not in the tracker, so no depth or aquifer is listed for it. The tracker still marks Wells 3 and 6 as active, but SDWIS deactivated Well 3 on April 20, 2023 and Well 6 on March 21, 2024. Before that, the shallow wells carried the load: the 2021 report splits the water 73.53% from Well 6, 10.27% from Well 3 and 16.01% from Well 5.
Camanche began testing for PFAS in January 2022. In a letter dated March 9, 2023, the city said its two shallow wells, which then supplied most of its water, showed detectable PFAS, while the deep well it used as a backup showed none. A September 2022 public notice had reported July 2022 results above EPA's non-enforceable lifetime interim health advisories for PFOA and PFOS. SDWIS shows no PFAS violation for the system.
The letter's plan was to make the deep well the primary supply and drill two new deep wells to replace the shallow ones. EPA's slides for an April 20, 2023 public meeting show Well 5 rehabbed and serving water as of April 10, 2023, with the new wells targeted for service by 2026. A Safe Drinking Water Act order on consent between EPA and 3M, announced November 3, 2022, requires 3M to offer, at its expense, alternative water or treatment to Camanche Water Supply. 3M neither admits nor denies the order's factual findings.
Well 5's published PFAS results are all non-detects. The Iowa DNR portal shows none detected at its entry point in April, July and October 2022. Sampling required under the 3M order found none of the 27 PFAS it analyzed at Well 5 and two treated-water sampling points on June 20, 2023 and February 20, 2024, and EPA's UCMR 5 samples at the Well 5 entry point on May 5 and November 19, 2025 put all 29 PFAS below minimum reporting levels. As of October 30, 2025, the DNR portal listed Wells 7 and 8 as pending, and SDWIS has no record for either, so neither is confirmed in service. The 2025 water quality report gives 563-259-9410 as the city's contact number.
Our free in-home test does not cover PFAS; that takes a certified laboratory. Our reverse osmosis systems are certified to NSF/ANSI 58 for total dissolved solids only; they are not certified for nitrate, PFAS, lead or radium, and we do not claim they remove them.
The Iowa DNR portal holds four hardness samples for Camanche, all between 310 and 400 mg/L as calcium carbonate, or 18.1 to 23.4 grains per gallon:
All four are special samples rather than routine compliance results, and the Well 7 and Well 8 figures come from wells listed as pending, not from water in the pipes. Set a softener from a reading at your own sink, and test again if the city changes its source mix.
Total dissolved solids have been measured only in special samples from the two pending wells, 990 mg/L at Well 7 and 560 mg/L at Well 8; there is no entry-point or distribution result, so neither figure describes tap water. Iron read 0.03 mg/L in distribution-system sampling on October 22, 2021, when the shallow wells still supplied most of the water, and the active Well 5 plant adds a phosphate inhibitor that the 2021 report describes as polyphosphate added to sequester iron.
SDWIS lists 13 violations for Camanche Water Supply. All 13 are monitoring and reporting violations marked not health-based, and none is a maximum contaminant level exceedance:
Recent nitrate results for Well 5 are below detection: under 0.10 mg/L as nitrogen on October 27, 2025, and under 0.25 mg/L in October 2024 and October 2023, against a 10 mg/L MCL. The now-inactive shallow wells read higher but stayed under that limit; the Well 3 entry point mostly read 4 to 6.7 mg/L from 1998 to 2015. Combined radium at the Well 5 entry point was 1.8 pCi/L on January 14, 2026, against the 5 pCi/L MCL, and SDWIS shows no radionuclide violation.
The 2025 report gives a lead 90th percentile of 2.00 ppb from 2023 sampling, with one sample above the 15 ppb action level, and a copper 90th percentile of 0.35 ppm, with no violation for either; the city says it has completed a service line inventory. Disinfection is free chlorine from sodium hypochlorite, not chloramine, per SDWIS and EPA's UCMR 5 data, and the 2025 report shows a 1.2 ppm running annual average against a 4.0 ppm maximum residual disinfectant level, with no violation. Total trihalomethanes at the Platt Park sampling site were below 2 ppb in 2023, 2024 and 2025.
All prices are all-in: equipment, installation, taxes and a lifetime parts warranty, with 5 years on media and 1 year on labor.
Camanche's disinfectant is free chlorine, not chloramine, which is worth knowing when you choose between standard whole-home carbon and the catalytic upgrade. The annual service plan is $199 a year, or $249 a year with tankless RO. A diagnostic service call is $199, and a known-issue trip is $99 plus the part. Financing is available at 0% through a third-party lender with approved credit, and military and first responders get $100 off. More on water softeners, reverse osmosis drinking-water systems and reverse osmosis in the Quad Cities.
The city's March 9, 2023 letter also covered private wells: the city tested three private sand point wells and found PFAS results similar to city water at that time, and the letter notes that city ordinance 6-3-26 limits sand point wells to irrigation.
A drilled private well outside city service is its owner's to test. Bacteria and nitrate need a certified laboratory, and so does PFAS; our free in-home test covers hardness, iron and total dissolved solids only. Our guide to free well water testing in Iowa explains how to arrange lab testing. Once a well has tested safe, we build around your results with a well dual-tank system, adding sediment filtration where the readings call for it. UV is a supplemental NSF/ANSI 55 Class B unit for water that has already tested safe; it is never the fix for a contaminated well.
Well 5, the only well SDWIS lists as active, has a single entry-point hardness reading of 18.1 grains, and pending Well 7 sampled at 23.4, so the number that sets your softener is the one from your own tap. We test hardness, iron and total dissolved solids at your kitchen sink for free. Book the free in-home water test, try the instant quote, call or text 319-319-6566, or email ryan@kindwaterco.com.
Quad Cities · Clinton · McCausland · Princeton · DeWitt · Scott County
No. EPA's Safe Drinking Water Information System lists only disinfection and corrosion-control treatment for Camanche Water Supply, and a search for a softening objective returns nothing. The one hardness sample at the Well 5 entry point, taken March 31, 2025, read 310 mg/L, about 18.1 grains per gallon, and none of the city's 2020 to 2025 water quality reports mentions softening.
The Iowa DNR Drinking Water Portal has one sample at the Well 5 entry point: 310 mg/L as calcium carbonate, or 18.1 grains per gallon, on March 31, 2025. Samples from the two pending new wells read 400 mg/L (23.4 gpg) at Well 7 and 310 mg/L (18.1 gpg) at Well 8. The city's water quality reports print no hardness figure, so our free test measures yours at the kitchen sink.
Testing that began in January 2022 found detectable PFAS in the city's two shallow wells, while deep Well 5 showed none. EPA meeting slides show Well 5 serving water as of April 10, 2023, and SDWIS marked the shallow wells inactive in 2023 and 2024. Well 5's PFAS samples from 2022 through 2025 were all non-detects, and SDWIS shows no PFAS violation. Our free test does not cover PFAS; that needs a certified lab.
A softener alone is $1,900, a whole-home softener with carbon filtration is $2,500, and adding reverse osmosis makes it $2,850. Reverse osmosis on its own is $800 with a tank or $900 tankless; tankless is not installed on a well. Prices include equipment, installation, taxes and a lifetime parts warranty. Camanche is more than 50 miles from Marion, so travel is $1 a mile past the first 50, quoted before you agree.
Yes. We repair and maintain softeners, filters and reverse osmosis systems, including brands we did not sell. A diagnostic service call is $199, and a known-issue trip is $99 plus the part. SDWIS shows Camanche retiring shallow Wells 3 and 6 in 2023 and 2024 and lists deep Well 5 as its only active well, so a softener set up before then is worth re-checking against a hardness reading at your sink. Any replacement is installed by licensed local plumbing professionals we vet, schedule, and stand behind.
Every water and population figure on this page comes from a public record; our prices are our own. Here is where to open each record 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
.webp)
