Clive's tap water is treated twice before it reaches you. Central Iowa Water Works produces and softens it at plants Des Moines Water Works runs under contract, and then the City of Clive treats it again. The city's only entries in the federal drinking water database are chlorination and gaseous chlorination, at a site the record calls Treatment Plant #1. That second dose of chlorine, and the fact that no state record holds a single hardness number for Clive, are what shape the water in a Clive home.
| Clive at a glance | What the record shows |
|---|---|
| Who supplies the water | Clive Water Department, PWSID IA7720051, 20,277 people served (EPA SDWIS). The city buys its water through a connection from Central Iowa Water Works, listed as IA7727033 |
| Where it comes from | Purchased surface water. The Iowa DNR Source Water Tracker lists no wells for Clive at all |
| Treated in Clive | Chlorination and gaseous chlorination at the city's Treatment Plant #1. Those are the only two treatment records EPA holds for the system |
| Softened at the plant | Yes, upstream. Des Moines Water Works lime-softens at its Fleur Drive and McMullen plants, and the Saylorville plant uses ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis. Clive's own plant does not soften |
| Published hardness | None for Clive. The Iowa DNR portal returns “No data found” for this system. The supplier's stated goal is under 150 mg/L, or 8.76 grains |
Water leaving a treatment plant carries a disinfectant residual, a small, deliberate amount of chlorine meant to last the trip through the pipes. Purchased water then has to cross into a second system, the city's own mains and storage, and the residual can fade along the way. A city that buys its water can top it up before it goes out to homes. Clive's federal record shows exactly that: two treatment entries, both chlorination, at its own plant, and nothing else.
This is ordinary utility practice rather than a warning sign. EPA's database shows zero violations of any kind for the Clive system. What it does mean at your kitchen sink is simple. The chlorine the city adds on purpose is the same chlorine some people notice in a glass of cold water, or smell when a hot shower fills the bathroom with steam.
Chlorine taste is an aesthetic complaint, and it has an ordinary household answer: activated carbon. A carbon tank on the main line reduces chlorine taste and odor at every tap in the house, the shower included, rather than at one faucet. Pitchers and refrigerator filters do the same job one glass at a time, and plenty of Clive households start there. When you are refilling a pitcher several times a day, or the shower smell is the thing you notice first, a whole-home carbon tank starts to make sense.
One detail people miss: a softener on its own does nothing about chlorine. A resin-only softener trades out hardness minerals and leaves the chlorine exactly where it was. That is why our standard whole-home builds pair softening with carbon, and why we also sell a carbon-only tank for Clive homes that want the taste handled without changing their hardness at all.
We looked. The Iowa DNR Drinking Water Portal returned “No data found” for Clive on every analyte we tried, hardness included. Clive buys its water rather than pumping its own, and the state portal holds no Clive samples at all. That leaves one published figure in the chain, and it is a goal rather than a measurement: Des Moines Water Works says it strives to keep total hardness “to less than 150 mg/L or 8.76 grains.” Neither of its last two annual water quality reports lists a hardness value.
On the USGS scale, 150 mg/L falls in the hard band, 121 to 180 mg/L. You may also find hardness figures for Clive on other companies' websites. We could not trace any of them to a Clive sample in a state or federal record, so we are not repeating them here. The free in-home test is how you get a real number: we measure hardness, iron and total dissolved solids at your own kitchen sink and write the readings down for you to keep.
If a bill insert or a news story mentioned Central Iowa Water Works and you wondered whether Clive changed water, the short answer is that the owner changed, not the plants. CIWW was chartered on 11 April 2024 as a regional water production authority and became the owner on 1 January 2025, keeping Des Moines Water Works on as the contract operator of the plants it already ran. The federal record shows the change on Clive's side the same day: the city's connection from Des Moines Water Works was closed on 1 January 2025 and replaced by one from CIWW.
For a Clive kitchen tap that is paperwork more than chemistry. The water is produced at the same plants that serve Des Moines, drawing on the Raccoon and Des Moines rivers, and it still passes through Clive's own chlorination before it reaches you. What changed is the name at the top of the supply chain, which matters mostly when you go looking for the right annual report. The regional report Des Moines Water Works publishes each year carries a row for Clive's own distribution-system results.
In Clive the conversation usually starts with taste and ends with the hardness reading from your own sink. 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 a tankless-RO home, and every visit includes a fresh water test. 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, always quoted before we come out. Installation is done by licensed local plumbing professionals we vet, schedule and stand behind. For numbers first, try the instant quote or request a written quote.
We are licensed and insured, and we publish our prices so every Clive household pays the same. When a record is missing, as Clive's hardness record is, we say so and measure your water instead of guessing. And when a carbon tank alone would fix what bothers you, that is what we quote.
Clive has a clear treatment record and no hardness record, and the free in-home test fills that gap. We come to you, test hardness, iron and total dissolved solids at your sink, and leave the readings and a written quote with you whether or not you buy anything. Book your free in-home water test.
Urbandale · West Des Moines · Waukee · Johnston · Des Moines · Polk County
Only with chlorine. Clive buys its water from Central Iowa Water Works, and EPA’s drinking water database lists two treatment records for the city: chlorination and gaseous chlorination at its Treatment Plant #1. Softening happens upstream, at the Des Moines Water Works-run plants that produce the water.
No figure is published for Clive. The Iowa DNR Drinking Water Portal returns “No data found” for hardness on the Clive system. The supplier, Des Moines Water Works, states a goal of under 150 mg/L, or 8.76 grains, which is a target rather than a measurement. A free in-home test gives you the number at your own sink.
Because the city adds chlorine at its own plant to water that arrives already treated, so a disinfectant residual is present at the tap. That residual is what some people taste in cold water or smell in a hot shower. Activated carbon is the usual household answer for chlorine taste and odor. A resin-only softener does not change it.
The owner changed, not the plants. EPA’s record shows Clive’s connection from Des Moines Water Works closed on 1 January 2025 and a connection from Central Iowa Water Works opened in its place. CIWW became the owner that day and kept Des Moines Water Works on as contract operator of the same plants.
A Kind Water Co whole-home carbon tank is $1,150, or $1,450 with catalytic carbon. A softener with carbon filtration is $2,500, or $2,850 with reverse osmosis, and RO on its own is $800 tank or $900 tankless. Prices are all-in with installation, taxes and a lifetime parts warranty. 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.
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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