How hard is the water in Pope County, MN?

18.5 grains per gallon

A softener will pay its way here.

The median hardness measured in Pope County, MN is 318 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 18.5 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 7 samples at 6 sites between 2013 and 2022, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.

How much it varies here

Half the sites came in between 16.6 and 20.4 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 18.5 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.

More on sizing a softener for your household.

From 9.3 to 21.6 gpg

The softest single sample on record in Pope County was 160 mg/L and the hardest 369 mg/L, a 2-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 20.4 gpg and the bottom quarter below 16.6 gpg.

What a softener would cost to run

For a household of 3, a 24,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 405 lb of salt a year (11 bags of 40 lb, about $73), 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 $173 a year.

Sizing at 18.5 gpg

Pope County against the rest of Minnesota

Among the 87 Minnesota counties with data, Pope County is number 33 of 87 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 80% of counties.

Softest in Minnesota: Lake County at 1.3 gpg. Hardest: Traverse County at 42.6 gpg. Closest to Pope County: Polk County (18.5), Becker County (18.1), Olmsted County (18).