How hard is the water in Niobrara County, WY?
10 grains per gallon
A softener is worth it here.
The median hardness measured in Niobrara County, WY is 172 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 10 gpg. That is hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 64 samples at 34 sites between 1992 and 2015, 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 8.8 and 13 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 10 gpg a softener is worth getting, mainly to protect the water heater and cut soap use. Get at least two quotes, ask each installer what grain capacity they are fitting, and check it against the sizing table below. Because Niobrara 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 0.5 to 111.0 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Niobrara County was 9 mg/L and the hardest 1,900 mg/L, a 211-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 13 gpg and the bottom quarter below 8.8 gpg. So even here some sites draw water soft enough to need nothing at all.
Wells 10 gpg, rivers and lakes 66.6 gpg
64 groundwater samples from 34 wells put the median at 171.5 mg/L. 120 surface samples from 2 sites put it at 1140 mg/L. In Niobrara County the rivers and lakes come out 56.6 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 24,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 219 lb of salt a year (6 bags of 40 lb, about $39), 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 $139 a year.
Sizing at 10 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 600 | 24,000 | 73 lb |
| 2 | 1,200 | 24,000 | 146 lb |
| 4 | 2,400 | 24,000 | 292 lb |
| 6 | 3,600 | 32,000 | 438 lb |
Niobrara County against the rest of Wyoming
Among the 23 Wyoming counties with data, Niobrara County is number 17 of 23 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 51% of counties.
Softest in Wyoming: Park County at 1.4 gpg. Hardest: Natrona County at 124.4 gpg. Closest to Niobrara County: Fremont County (10.4), Campbell County (8.9), Laramie County (8.7).