Water Quality

What we’re doing to maintain the safety and quality of your drinking water

Gainesville’s drinking water comes from the Floridan aquifer. We test and treat it at the Murphree Water Treatment Plant.

• Your Water Quality Report
• Water Quality FAQs
• Learn more about your drinking water supply

PFAS

Discussions concerning PFAS chemicals have gained attention in both national and local news outlets. The US EPA recently published the first round of results from the Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR) which included PFAS detections in some public water supplies. GRU sampling for UCMR is scheduled for February and August of 2024; however, we conducted preliminary sampling and found no concentration of these chemicals in our water source.

Residential Lead and Copper 

GRU routinely monitors your drinking water in accordance with federal and state laws. We test for lead and copper in customers’ homes every three years. Our historical values for lead and copper are low and have met drinking water standards for 25 years. While these contaminants are not in our source water, they can enter tap water through old, corroding household plumbing materials.

Water Chemistry

• Hardness: Approximately 140 mg/L as CaCO₃ (8.2 grains/gal)
• pH: 8.6
• Sulfate: 97.4 mg/L
• Chloride: 26.3 mg/L
• Ammonia: 0.24 mg/L

Supplying Future Needs

Saving water is an important part of ensuring an adequate supply of safe drinking water for future generations. Our efforts include:

• Promoting reclaimed water use
• Educating customers about maintaining water quality