How hard is the water in Hughes County, SD?
16.4 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Hughes County, SD is 280 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 16.4 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 99 samples at 8 sites between 1997 and 2020, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 13.8 and 19.8 gpg. The whole middle of that range gives the same answer, so a test of your own tap is unlikely to change it. Confidence in the county figure: medium (how it is measured).
What to do next
At 16.4 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.
More on sizing a softener for your household.
From 13.3 to 42.4 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Hughes County was 227 mg/L and the hardest 725.5 mg/L, a 3-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 19.8 gpg and the bottom quarter below 13.8 gpg.
Wells 24.7 gpg, rivers and lakes 14.6 gpg
1 groundwater samples from 1 wells put the median at 423 mg/L. 98 surface samples from 7 sites put it at 250 mg/L. In Hughes County the wells come out 10.1 gpg harder. Groundwater sits in contact with rock for years and picks up calcium and magnesium as it goes, so wells usually read harder. A utility here that draws from the river can deliver noticeably different water from a private well next door.
What a softener would cost to run
For a household of 3, a 24,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 357 lb of salt a year (9 bags of 40 lb, about $64), 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 $164 a year.
Sizing at 16.4 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 984 | 24,000 | 120 lb |
| 2 | 1,968 | 24,000 | 239 lb |
| 4 | 3,936 | 32,000 | 479 lb |
| 6 | 5,904 | 48,000 | 718 lb |
Hughes County against the rest of South Dakota
Among the 55 South Dakota counties with data, Hughes County is number 37 of 55 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 74% of counties.
Softest in South Dakota: Dewey County at 0.5 gpg. Hardest: Hanson County at 84.7 gpg. Closest to Hughes County: Stanley County (16.1), Mellette County (17), Lawrence County (17.2).