The NBU Water Quality Report, Explained

NBU's 2025 Water Quality Report found no violations. Most water comes from the Guadalupe River via the Gruene Road plant, with Edwards and Trinity groundwater. The report doesn't list hardness; NBU's last published range was 8.1 to 19.5 grains per gallon (2018 data), and NBU says it varies by source and season.

Whose water it covers

The report covers NBU's public water system, TX0460001. The City of New Braunfels says NBU serves most of the city; customers of Crystal Clear, Green Valley, Springs Hill or Canyon Lake Water Service receive their own suppliers' reports instead. NBU's report is published each summer for the previous calendar year; the 2025 edition was published on June 26, 2026, and NBU keeps past years on its water quality report page.

Sources and supply

The 2025 report names the Guadalupe River, the Edwards Aquifer's South Balcones Fault Zone and the Trinity Aquifer, with purchase agreements from Green Valley SUD and GBRA, for 54,575 acre-feet in total. The Gruene Road Surface Water Treatment Plant handles the majority. TCEQ rates NBU's water Superior.

Hardness: an older number

Hardness isn't a regulated contaminant, so recent reports skip it. The 2019 report, covering 2018, gave 8.1 to 19.5 grains per gallon with a 15.1 average. NBU's current hard-water page adds that groundwater carries more minerals and that hardness varies by location, source and season, but it gives no figure for each source.

The supply has also changed since then. In 2018 NBU had 29,942 acre-feet from the Gruene plant, five Edwards wells and six Trinity wells; the 2025 report lists 54,575 acre-feet and adds purchase agreements. That's one more reason to treat the 2018 range as background and test your own tap.

The results tables

• Disinfectant: total chlorine 2.58 ppm average, range 0.5 to 5.4; limit 4 ppm as an annual average.
• Byproducts: total trihalomethanes 79 ppb highest locational average, limit 80; haloacetic acids 31 ppb, limit 60.
• Nitrate: 0.61 to 2.67 ppm; limit 10.
• Fluoride: highest 0.49 ppm; limit 4.
• Lead: 90th percentile 1.7 ppb for 2023 to 2025, and not one sampled home above the 15 ppb action level; copper 0.14 ppm.

Figures are from the NBU 2025 report. PFAS sampling results (UCMR 5, 2024) appear in the 2024 report: PFHxS up to 3.7 ppt, PFBA 10.2 ppt, and no PFOA or PFOS among the detections. None of the 2025 results indicated a violation, according to NBU.

Using it at home

Hardness drives the softener choice, covered on installing a water softener in New Braunfels. Disinfectant taste and byproducts are what whole-house filters address. A tap test fills in the number the report leaves out.