How hard is the water in Morton County, KS?
19.8 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Morton County, KS is 339 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 19.8 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 9 samples at 6 sites between 1992 and 2021, drawn from groundwater wells, which is what most taps and private wells in the county draw on.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 14.2 and 25 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 19.8 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 12.1 to 31.4 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Morton County was 207 mg/L and the hardest 538 mg/L, a 3-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 25 gpg and the bottom quarter below 14.2 gpg.
Wells 19.8 gpg, rivers and lakes 37.1 gpg
9 groundwater samples from 6 wells put the median at 339 mg/L. 30 surface samples from 3 sites put it at 635 mg/L. In Morton County the rivers and lakes come out 17.3 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 433 lb of salt a year (11 bags of 40 lb, about $78), 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 $178 a year.
Sizing at 19.8 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,188 | 24,000 | 145 lb |
| 2 | 2,376 | 24,000 | 289 lb |
| 4 | 4,752 | 40,000 | 578 lb |
| 6 | 7,128 | 64,000 | 867 lb |
Morton County against the rest of Kansas
Among the 105 Kansas counties with data, Morton County is number 34 of 105 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 83% of counties.
Softest in Kansas: Woodson County at 6.3 gpg. Hardest: Linn County at 114.5 gpg. Closest to Morton County: Republic County (19.9), Nemaha County (19.5), Ellsworth County (19).