Temple's Water: Where It Comes From and How Hard It Is

Temple's tap water measured 174.1 mg/L of hardness in 2025, about 10.2 grains per gallon (City of Temple Consumer Confidence Report). It is surface water from the Leon River, south of Lake Belton, in the Brazos River Basin, treated at two plants and disinfected with chloramines.

The source: Leon River and Lake Belton storage

Temple's 2025 report describes its source as surface water from the Leon River, south of Lake Belton, within the Brazos River Basin. The city's 2024 Water Conservation Plan lays out the rights behind it: 12,500 acre-feet a year of run-of-the-river rights from a reservoir on the Leon River, plus 31,953 acre-feet a year bought from the Brazos River Authority out of Lake Belton, for 44,453 acre-feet in total.

Treatment and storage

The city runs two plants with a combined design capacity of 55 million gallons a day: a 30 MGD conventional plant and a 25 MGD microfiltration membrane plant. Treated water is stored in 12 water towers holding 13.5 million gallons, plus 14.82 million gallons of ground storage (City of Temple). The disinfectant is chloramine, averaging 2.89 ppm in 2025.

The mineral numbers

• Hardness: 174.1 mg/L, about 10.2 gpg (174.1 ÷ 17.12).
• Calcium: 56.4 ppm. Magnesium: 8.15 ppm.
• Total dissolved solids: 266 ppm. Sodium: 18.1 ppm.
• Total alkalinity: 158 ppm. pH: 7.5 average.

All from the 2025 report. The 2022 report listed hardness at 149 mg/L, from a sample taken in 2013.

Testing your own tap

The report's hardness figure is one number for the whole city system. A test at your own faucet confirms it and gives an installer the exact number to program into a softener's valve, which matters because a setting that's too low lets hard water through. Homes on a private well or a different water supplier aren't covered by the city's report at all, so testing there is the only way to know.

What the numbers mean at home

At 174 mg/L, Temple's water is hard on the USGS scale and close to the 180 mg/L line for very hard. That's enough to leave scale in water heaters and on fixtures, which is the case for installing a softener. The chloramine is a taste question, answered by catalytic carbon. The low sodium and moderate dissolved solids mean reverse osmosis is optional. Prices for each are on the Temple water softener cost page.