Muscatine's water arrives at your house with three chemicals added to it and nothing taken out of it. Muscatine Power and Water draws from the Muscatine Island alluvial aquifer through 27 active wells, adds chlorine, fluoride and a phosphate corrosion inhibitor, and pushes the result down more than 158 miles of main. There is no filter, no aeration step and no softener anywhere in that sequence. MP&W's own 2025 Consumer Confidence Report explains why: the aquifer's sand and gravel “naturally filters our source water and requires minimal treatment.” Whatever minerals the aquifer holds are therefore the minerals in your kettle.
| Muscatine at a glance | What the record shows |
|---|---|
| Who supplies the water | Muscatine Power and Water, PWSID IA7048001, serving 25,516 people through 10,443 connections in EPA SDWIS; MP&W has supplied the city since 1900 |
| Where it comes from | 27 active wells in the Muscatine Island alluvial aquifer, a sand-and-gravel formation, at depths the Iowa DNR logs between 62.75 and 141 feet |
| Softened at the plant | No. None of the sixteen EPA treatment records for IA7048001 carries a softening objective, and MP&W's 2025 report lists the whole treatment train as chlorine, fluoride and phosphate |
| Published hardness | 150 to 290 mg/L in ten raw well samples between 2009 and 2025, median 195 mg/L — 8.8 to 17.0 grains per gallon — plus one distribution-system sample of 270 mg/L on 23 June 2016, per the Iowa DNR sample database, analyte 84 |
| Treatment applied | Chlorination for disinfection, fluoridation, and a phosphate inhibitor for corrosion control. No filtration process code appears anywhere in the federal record |
The federal treatment database returns sixteen records for Muscatine Power and Water. Six are disinfection, logged as chlorination and gaseous chlorination. Six are corrosion control, logged as inhibitor and phosphate. Four are fluoridation with fluorosilicic acid. That is the complete list. No record carries a softening objective, and no record carries a filtration process code at all.
The three sites SDWIS calls treatment plants — Plant #1 Main, Plant #2 at Progress Park and Plant #3 on Grandview Avenue — are chemical-feed and pumping stations. Water is dosed and pumped there. Nothing is taken out of it.
The chemistry agrees. An ion-exchange softener trades calcium and magnesium for sodium, so stripping roughly 250 mg/L of hardness at a municipal scale would push finished sodium up by roughly 115 mg/L. Muscatine's finished water at the entry points measured 10, 11 and 12 mg/L of sodium in January 2026, against raw wells running 3.7 to 15 mg/L, apart from a single 31 mg/L reading at test well #41 in 2009. Nothing has been exchanged for anything. Note too that the phosphate MP&W adds is a corrosion inhibitor, correctly filed under corrosion control in the federal record — it is not a softening step, and it does not reduce hardness.
None of this is a criticism. Hardness is not a regulated contaminant and no Iowa utility is required to remove it. It simply means the job is yours, at the house.
The Iowa DNR sample portal holds eleven hardness results for Muscatine under analyte 84. Ten of them are raw well samples, taken as acceptance tests when a new well was brought on line between 2009 and 2025. One is a distribution-system sample.
The median of those ten is 195 mg/L, or 11.4 grains per gallon. The eleventh result is the only finished-water reading on file: 270 mg/L, 15.8 grains, taken from the distribution system at a sample point logged as “JAIL” on 23 June 2016.
We are not going to hang this page on that one number. It is ten years old, it used EDTA titration where most of the well samples were calculated from calcium and magnesium, and it sits near the top of the raw range when a blend drawn from 27 wells would be expected nearer 200 mg/L. Leading with 270 would overstate a typical Muscatine tap by roughly four grains.
The defensible summary is a range. Muscatine water runs somewhere between 8.8 and 17.0 grains depending on which wells are carrying the load that day, with the middle of the published record sitting near eleven and a half. Because the plant does not soften, raw and finished are the same water, which is why a raw well sample is meaningful here at all. If you want the wider context, our Iowa water hardness by city guide sets these figures beside the rest of the state.
MP&W's 2025 report describes “27 active groundwater wells ranging in depth from 64 to 140 feet.” The Iowa DNR's individual well logs are more precise and slightly wider: 62.75 feet at Well #5, drilled in 1958, out to 141 feet at Well #40 from 2008.
Those wells fall into two clear groups. A shallow Main Field cluster sits at about 63 to 82 feet — Wells #5, #41, #42, #44 and #46 — and a deeper group at 121 to 141 feet feeds Progress Park and the two Grandview Avenue entry points. The single hardest sample on record came out of the shallow group.
One correction worth making, because it circulates: the “40 to 140 feet” figure in geological descriptions of Muscatine Island is the saturated thickness of the aquifer, meaning how much water-bearing material is down there. It is not how deep the wells go.
Depth matters here because of what the DNR has said about the formation. MP&W's report states that the Iowa DNR “determined this alluvial aquifer to be highly susceptible to contamination due to its sand and gravel composition,” with nothing overlying it to stop material moving down from the surface. In response MP&W runs a Source Water Protection Program and a Well Head Protection Plan, checks the wellfields daily, and has worked with the railroad on an emergency response plan for spills. It is a serious answer to a real geological fact.
MP&W documents itself thoroughly. Water since 1900. Every water staff member licensed through the Iowa DNR. More than 13,000 water sample tests a year according to the 2025 report, a figure the mpw.org water page still gives as over 14,000. Lead and copper testing runs on a three-year cycle, last completed in summer 2025 with the next round due in 2028.
Two numbers in that report deserve a homeowner's attention, stated exactly as MP&W states them. Nitrate in 2025 had a highest detected level of 9.5 ppm against a federal limit of 10, with a system range of 1.2 to 9.5 and no violation recorded. The 9.5 is a single sample result, so most of the system most of the time reads far lower — but there is no nitrate treatment anywhere on this system, and MP&W's report notes that nitrate levels “may rise quickly for short periods of time because of rainfall or agricultural activity.” Radium 226 plus 228 was tested in 2020 at a highest detected 2.1 against a limit of 5. Sodium in the same round ran 12 to 16 ppm.
The same report lists PFAS results from unregulated-contaminant monitoring as ranges rather than single values: PFOA from below 2.0 to 6.4 nanograms per liter and PFOS from 2.7 to 5.1 — the only two of the seven PFAS listed that carry a federal limit; the largest detection in the table is PFBA at 65 ng/L, which is unregulated. A new EPA standard of 4.0 parts per trillion for those two is judged on a running annual average rather than one sample, systems are still inside the monitoring window, and MP&W reports no violation while saying it has held preliminary discussions with treatment vendors. We are not going to call that an exceedance, because MP&W's own document does not.
What MP&W does not publish is hardness. There is no hardness row in the report and no grain figure anywhere on mpw.org, which is entirely normal — hardness is a nuisance mineral rather than a health-regulated contaminant, so nobody has to report it. The Iowa DNR sample portal is genuinely the only public source, and it is the source every number on this page comes from.
City water in the low double digits in grains, with no plant softening and a well-run utility that publishes the rest. Every price is all-in: equipment, installation by a licensed local plumbing professional, taxes and a lifetime parts warranty.
Annual maintenance is $199 a year for a tank-RO home and $249 for a tankless-RO home. A full diagnostic service call is $199; a known-issue trip is $99 plus the part. We offer 0% financing, and $100 off for military and first responders. Ask for the written breakdown before you schedule, or start one through our instant quote.
One thing we will not do is sell you equipment on a contaminant claim. EPA lists reverse osmosis, ion exchange and electrodialysis as best available technologies for nitrate. Our reverse osmosis systems are certified to NSF/ANSI 58 for total dissolved solids and are not certified for nitrate, PFAS or radium reduction, so we do not claim any of that for them.
Outside the mains, the same sand and gravel sits under a great many rural properties, without the daily wellfield checks, the chlorination or the 13,000 annual samples the city gets. The Iowa DNR recommends testing a private well every year for bacteria and nitrate, and Iowa's Private Well Grants program covers that testing through your county at no cost.
That line has moved outward over the years. MP&W's federal facility record shows nine connection points to small neighboring systems now logged inactive, Northwood Estates, Mulberry Manor, Dartford Subdivision and the municipal airport among them. If you are not certain which side of the line your house is on, your utility bill will tell you.
Our well water setup is a dual-tank system at $3,450, or $3,800 with tank RO, with UV disinfection at $700 and sediment pre-filtration at $500 when the readings call for them. We fit tank RO rather than tankless on a well, because high dissolved solids cost a tankless unit its pressure. Start with free well water testing.
We are licensed and insured, and our softeners are built from NSF/ANSI 44 certified components and our reverse osmosis systems are certified to NSF/ANSI 58. Installation is handled by licensed local plumbing professionals we vet, schedule and stand behind. Pricing is published and all-in, so the figure you read here is the figure on the paperwork. Distance and site conditions are the only things that can change it, and we tell you before you agree.
The state record tells you what the aquifer holds and MP&W tells you what it adds. Neither tells you what is happening inside your own water heater, or whether the softener in the basement is sized and set for eleven grains. We come to Muscatine, measure at your kitchen sink, and leave you the readings and a written quote at no charge. Call or text 319-319-6566, email ryan@kindwaterco.com, or book your free in-home water test.
Between 8.8 and 17.0 grains per gallon. The Iowa DNR sample database records ten raw well samples from 2009 to 2025 running 150 to 290 mg/L as calcium carbonate, a median of 195 mg/L or 11.4 grains, and one distribution-system sample of 270 mg/L (15.8 grains) taken on 23 June 2016. Muscatine Power and Water does not soften, so the aquifer figures and the tap figures describe the same water.
No. None of the sixteen EPA treatment records for PWSID IA7048001 carries a softening objective, and MP&W's 2025 Consumer Confidence Report names the entire treatment train as chlorine for disinfection, fluoride, and phosphate to stabilize the water's chemistry. Finished sodium of 10 to 12 mg/L at the entry points confirms it, because ion-exchange softening would have raised that figure sharply.
Its 2025 report gives a highest detected nitrate level of 9.5 ppm against a federal limit of 10, with a system range of 1.2 to 9.5 and no violation recorded. That 9.5 is a single sample result, so most readings are much lower, but there is no nitrate treatment on the system and MP&W notes levels may rise quickly after rainfall or agricultural activity. EPA lists reverse osmosis, ion exchange and electrodialysis as best available technologies for nitrate; our own systems are certified to NSF/ANSI 58 for total dissolved solids and are not certified for nitrate reduction.
From 27 active wells in the Muscatine Island alluvial aquifer, a sand-and-gravel formation. MP&W's 2025 report gives depths of 64 to 140 feet; the Iowa DNR's individual well logs run 62.75 feet at Well #5 to 141 feet at Well #40, in a shallow Main Field group around 63 to 82 feet and a deeper group of 121 to 141 feet serving Progress Park and Grandview Avenue.
A Kind Water Co softener is $2,500, or $2,850 paired with reverse osmosis. The XL softener is $2,800, or $3,150 with RO, and a standalone RO system is $800 for the tank model or $900 tankless. Every figure is all-in with equipment, installation by a licensed local plumbing professional, taxes and a lifetime parts warranty, with 0% financing and $100 off for military and first responders.
Every figure on this page traces to one of the following. Where two official sources disagree, we have said so in the text rather than picking the friendlier number.
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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