Pinellas County, FLHillsborough County water quality results
Hardness
Tampa publishes a range of 140–300 parts per million — about 8 to 17 grains per gallon — and it shifts between wet and dry seasons. Their 2025 report averaged 211 mg/L — about 12.3 grains. Hard to very hard, either way.
PFAS
PFAS — Tampa's newest report (2025 data) lists just two PFAS compounds in its EPA monitoring table: PFBS at 3.0 ppt and PFPeA at 3.7 ppt, sampled September 2025 at the Morris Bridge facility on purchased Tampa Bay Water. The older 2023 monitoring found more — 8 compounds detected, PFOS up to 6.9 ppt and PFOA up to 4.6 ppt, both above the 4 ppt federal limit at the top end, and 21 others not detected. Point-in-time results, not violations. Tampa isn't waiting around, either: the city is building a suspended ion-exchange plant for PFAS at its Tippin facility, billed as the first of its kind in America. That's the same ion-exchange approach I put in houses, at city scale.
Want your number? I sell a certified PFAS lab test — I take the sample, send it to the lab, and walk you through the results.
What this means for you
At these hardness levels, you're feeding your water heater and dishwasher a steady diet of rock. A softener pays for itself in appliance life.
Full results, in plain English
City of Tampa — 2025 report (published 2026). ND means not detected.
| Contaminant | What they found | Range |
|---|---|---|
| pH | 7.88 (2025 average) | Not published |
| Hardness | 211 mg/L, about 12.3 grains per gallon (2025 average) | 140–300 ppm (Tampa's published range) |
| Total dissolved solids | Not published in the 2025 report | Not published |
| Fluoride | 0.56 ppm — Tampa stopped adding fluoride in July 2025 under state law | Not published |
| Nitrate | 0.29 ppm | Not published |
| Sodium | 51 ppm | Not published |
| Barium | 0.011 ppm | Not published |
| Radium 226+228 | 0.6 pCi/L | Not published |
| Alpha emitters | 1.6 pCi/L | Not published |
| Chlorine/chloramine | 3.6 ppm | 0.4–5.3 ppm |
| Bromate | 3.979 ppb | 0.530–7.740 ppb |
| HAA5 | 21.44 ppb (LRAA — yearly average) | 3.26–18.45 ppb (individual sampling sites) |
| TTHM | 19.00 ppb (LRAA — yearly average) | 5.06–30.53 ppb (individual sampling sites) |
| Copper | 0.287 ppm (90th percentile, Jan–Jun 2025); 0.253 ppm (Jul–Dec) | 0.005–0.838 ppm; ND–1.12 ppm |
| Lead | 1.5 ppb (90th percentile, Jul–Dec 2025); 0.736 ppb (Jan–Jun) | ND–47.8 ppb; ND–6.32 ppb — one site over the action level in Jul–Dec |
| PFAS | 2025 report: 2 listed — PFBS 3.0 ppt, PFPeA 3.7 ppt (averages, Sept 2025, Morris Bridge facility) | Older 2023 monitoring: 8 detected (PFOS up to 6.9 ppt), 21 not detected. Point-in-time results, not violations. |
What's NOT in these reports: no finished-water iron number, no hydrogen sulfide number, no tannins, no microplastics — the utilities don't publish those. That's exactly what my free field test and my own tap readings are for.
Real tap readings from my free tests in Hillsborough: none logged yet. Get your free test and help build the county's real hardness map.