How hard is the water in Traverse County, MN?
42.6 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Traverse County, MN is 730 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 42.6 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 10 samples at 9 sites between 1994 and 2023, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 36.7 and 64.3 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 42.6 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 15.9 to 111.0 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Traverse County was 273 mg/L and the hardest 1,900 mg/L, a 7-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 64.3 gpg and the bottom quarter below 36.7 gpg.
Wells 15.9 gpg, rivers and lakes 47.6 gpg
1 groundwater samples from 1 wells put the median at 273 mg/L. 9 surface samples from 8 sites put it at 815 mg/L. In Traverse County the rivers and lakes come out 31.7 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 64,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 931 lb of salt a year (24 bags of 40 lb, about $168), 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 $268 a year.
Sizing at 42.6 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2,556 | 24,000 | 311 lb |
| 2 | 5,112 | 40,000 | 622 lb |
| 4 | 10,224 | 80,000 | 1,244 lb |
| 6 | 15,336 | twin tank | 1,866 lb |
Traverse County against the rest of Minnesota
Among the 87 Minnesota counties with data, Traverse County is the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 97% of counties.
Softest in Minnesota: Lake County at 1.3 gpg. Closest to Traverse County: Big Stone County (35.3), Yellow Medicine County (32.8), Lyon County (32.1).