How hard is the water in Judith Basin County, MT?
21.5 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Judith Basin County, MT is 369 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 21.5 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 52 samples at 22 sites between 1994 and 2026, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 9.9 and 28.8 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 21.5 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 Judith Basin County 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 7.1 to 98.1 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Judith Basin County was 122 mg/L and the hardest 1,680 mg/L, a 14-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 28.8 gpg and the bottom quarter below 9.9 gpg.
Wells 14.3 gpg, rivers and lakes 22.2 gpg
1 groundwater samples from 1 wells put the median at 244 mg/L. 51 surface samples from 21 sites put it at 380 mg/L. In Judith Basin County the rivers and lakes come out 7.9 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 32,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 470 lb of salt a year (12 bags of 40 lb, about $85), 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 $185 a year.
Sizing at 21.5 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,290 | 24,000 | 157 lb |
| 2 | 2,580 | 24,000 | 314 lb |
| 4 | 5,160 | 40,000 | 628 lb |
| 6 | 7,740 | 64,000 | 942 lb |
Judith Basin County against the rest of Montana
Among the 56 Montana counties with data, Judith Basin County is number 23 of 56 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 87% of counties.
Softest in Montana: Lincoln County at 3.4 gpg. Hardest: Rosebud County at 138.9 gpg. Closest to Judith Basin County: Teton County (21.7), McCone County (23.1), Carter County (24).