How hard is the water in St. Lawrence County, NY?
11 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in St. Lawrence County, NY is 188 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 11 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 49 samples at 43 sites between 1990 and 2023, 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 7.4 and 15.5 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 11 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 St. Lawrence 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 1.6 to 80.6 gpg
The softest single sample on record in St. Lawrence County was 28.2 mg/L and the hardest 1,380 mg/L, a 49-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 15.5 gpg and the bottom quarter below 7.4 gpg. So even here some sites draw water soft enough to need nothing at all.
Wells 11 gpg, rivers and lakes 0.6 gpg
49 groundwater samples from 43 wells put the median at 188 mg/L. 724 surface samples from 82 sites put it at 10.7 mg/L. In St. Lawrence County the wells come out 10.4 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 240 lb of salt a year (6 bags of 40 lb, about $43), 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 $143 a year.
Sizing at 11 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 660 | 24,000 | 80 lb |
| 2 | 1,320 | 24,000 | 161 lb |
| 4 | 2,640 | 24,000 | 321 lb |
| 6 | 3,960 | 32,000 | 482 lb |
St. Lawrence County against the rest of New York
Among the 61 New York counties with data, St. Lawrence County is number 28 of 61 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 54% of counties.
Softest in New York: Suffolk County at 1.6 gpg. Hardest: New York County at 161.1 gpg. Closest to St. Lawrence County: Chemung County (10.4), Tompkins County (10.3), Madison County (11.7).