How hard is the water in Cameron Parish, LA?
36 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Cameron Parish, LA is 617 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 36 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 735 samples at 20 sites between 1995 and 2024, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 7.5 and 101.9 gpg. That spread crosses a decision line, so some homes here land on a different answer. A $10 test strip on your own tap settles it. Confidence in the county figure: high (how it is measured).
What to do next
At 36 gpg a softener pays its way here. Before you buy, check the quoted unit's grain capacity against the sizing table below, and ask whether it regenerates on demand, which uses less salt than a timer. Call your utility for its own report if you are on city water. Because Cameron Parish straddles a decision line, check your own tap with a $10 test strip before you spend anything.
More on sizing a softener for your household.
From 3.0 to 231.3 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Cameron Parish was 52 mg/L and the hardest 3,960 mg/L, a 76-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 101.9 gpg and the bottom quarter below 7.5 gpg. So even here some sites draw water soft enough to need nothing at all.
Wells 8.9 gpg, rivers and lakes 43.8 gpg
5 groundwater samples from 4 wells put the median at 151.5 mg/L. 658 surface samples from 14 sites put it at 750 mg/L. In Cameron Parish the rivers and lakes come out 34.9 gpg harder. Here the surface water reads harder than the wells, which often points to streams fed by limestone springs or irrigation return flow. A utility here that draws from the aquifer can deliver noticeably different water from a private well next door.
What a softener would cost to run
For a household of 3, a 48,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 787 lb of salt a year (20 bags of 40 lb, about $142), and roughly 2,346 gallons of regeneration water. Installed, most units run $1,000 to $4,500; spread over 15 years with salt, that is about $242 a year.
Sizing at 36 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2,160 | 24,000 | 263 lb |
| 2 | 4,320 | 32,000 | 526 lb |
| 4 | 8,640 | 64,000 | 1,051 lb |
| 6 | 12,960 | twin tank | 1,577 lb |
Cameron Parish against the rest of Louisiana
Among the 64 Louisiana counties with data, Cameron Parish is number 3 of 64 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 96% of counties.
Softest in Louisiana: Lincoln Parish at 0.1 gpg. Hardest: St. Bernard Parish at 53.9 gpg. Closest to Cameron Parish: Grant Parish (28.4), Orleans Parish (44.1), Red River Parish (25.9).