Where does Henderson get its water from?

All of it starts as Rocky Mountain snow, travels down the Colorado River and is stored in Lake Mead. The Southern Nevada Water Authority treats it at one of two plants and the city delivers it.

Does Henderson have lead pipes?

Not in the city's own system. Henderson says it finished a service line inventory in October 2024 and certified it has no lead or galvanized-requiring-replacement lines. Some homes built before 1989 can have copper pipes joined with lead solder.

How do I tell if my tap water is safe to drink?

Start with your utility's yearly report, which lists every regulated substance it found against the legal limit. For your own pipes, only a test at your faucet answers it; Henderson asks residents who want a lead test to email its lead and copper team (address in the report).

Is Henderson's hard water a health risk?

No. The city's report says the calcium and magnesium that make its water hard are nontoxic and that the effects, such as chalky build-up and spotted glasses, are solely aesthetic.

Is Henderson tap water safe to drink?

Henderson runs its own water utility, separate from the Las Vegas Valley Water District, and publishes its own yearly test results. Here they are, read line by line.

Henderson water at a glance

about 18 grains per gallonExtremely hard

City of Henderson Department of Utility Services, annual water quality report, 2026 (2025 data). Softener dial setting: 18.

Hardness is the one thing in Henderson's water that matters for a softener; it has no bearing on safety.

How this figure was measured

Henderson: where the figure comes from

Who published it

Water authority

City of Henderson Department of Utility Services

About the authority

The City of Henderson department responsible for the city's water, wastewater and reclaimed water services. This figure is the utility's own. We don't produce or adjust it.

Type of source

Annual water quality report. Every community water system in the U.S. must publish one each year under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, so it is the utility’s own official record of what is in its water.

Data year

2026 (2025 data)

Last checked

15 October 2026, against the original document

What the figure is

What was measured

Typical hardness, in parts per million and grains per gallon: 304 mg/L, published as 18 grains per gallon

Area covered

The whole Henderson water system

How it was sampled

One typical figure for the whole city water system, given both in the annual report and on the department's water quality page. The report describes the water as "very hard".

Utility’s own advice

Set softeners to 16 to 19 grains per gallon.

Where the water comes from

All of Henderson's water comes from the Colorado River: it starts as snow in the Colorado Rockies and flows through the Grand Canyon into Lake Mead. The Southern Nevada Water Authority treats it at the Alfred Merritt Smith or River Mountains water treatment facility, and the City of Henderson delivers it. The city's own Henderson treatment facility has been out of service since June 2022 because of low lake levels.

How we use it

Figure we use

The document’s own grains-per-gallon figure (18).

Unit conversion

1 grain per gallon = 17.1 milligrams per litre (mg/L), the same as parts per million (ppm)

How we calculate

Daily hardness to remove = people × 75 gallons × grains per gallon. We pick the smallest standard size that lasts about 7 days between recharges, at 3,300 grains removed per pound of salt.

Limits

This is the city's stated typical figure; the report does not list hardness in its main water quality table. Hardness varies a little through the year. A home test result is more exact and overrides this figure.

Where Henderson’s tap water comes from

Every drop starts in the Colorado Rockies as snow, runs down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon and collects in Lake Mead. The Southern Nevada Water Authority treats it at one of two plants, Alfred Merritt Smith or River Mountains, and the city’s pipes carry it from there to your meter.

Henderson once had a treatment plant of its own. The report notes that the Henderson Water Treatment Facility has been out of service since June 2022 because of low lake levels, so the 2025 results come from the authority’s two plants plus samples the city took in its own pipe network.

Henderson’s 2025 results against the legal limits

The table below is the city’s own, split three ways in the original: its distribution pipes and each of the two treatment plants. Where both plants were tested, we show the full span and the note gives each plant’s figures.

Substances with a legal limit

Substance	Level found	Legal limit	Share of limit	Usual source
Copper	1.1 ppm (90th percentile), range not detected to 2.0	1.3 ppm	85% of the limit	Corrosion of household plumbing; erosion of natural deposits. 57 home tap samples, June to September 2025. Two were above the action level, which the rules allow while the 90th percentile stays below it.
Total trihalomethanes	27 to 70 ppb (highest yearly average at one site 63)	80 ppb	79% of the limit	Byproduct of drinking water disinfection.
Haloacetic acids	11 to 36 ppb (highest yearly average at one site 28)	60 ppb	47% of the limit	Byproduct of drinking water disinfection.
Bromate	not detected to 6.1 ppb (highest running yearly average 4.2)	10 ppb	42% of the limit	Byproduct of ozone disinfection. River Mountains 2.7 to 6.1 (highest running average 4.2); Alfred Merritt Smith not detected to 4.0 (3.2), its low sample taken while the plant's ozone system was out of service.
Turbidity (cloudiness)	highest reading 0.1 NTU; 100% of samples under 0.3 NTU	0.3 NTU	33% of the limit	Soil runoff. Alfred Merritt Smith highest 0.06 (July 10, 2025); River Mountains highest 0.1 (July 14, 2025).
Alpha particles	not detected to 4.3 pCi/L	15 pCi/L	29% of the limit	Erosion of natural deposits. Not detected at Alfred Merritt Smith; 4.3 at River Mountains.
Lead	3.8 ppb (90th percentile), range not detected to 101	15 ppb	25% of the limit	Corrosion of household plumbing; erosion of natural deposits. 57 home tap samples, June to September 2025. One sample, 101 ppb, was above the action level, which the rules allow while the 90th percentile stays below it.
Arsenic	1.3 to 2.1 ppb	10 ppb	21% of the limit	Erosion of natural deposits. Alfred Merritt Smith 1.3 to 1.9 (average 1.5); River Mountains 1.7 to 2.1 (average 1.9).
Free chlorine	not detected to 1.7 ppm (highest running yearly average 0.82)	4 ppm	21% of the limit	Water additive used to control microbes.
Fluoride	0.65 to 0.76 ppm (tap average 0.71)	4 ppm	19% of the limit	Erosion of natural deposits; water additive (required by state law). City taps 0.66 to 0.75; Alfred Merritt Smith 0.65 to 0.73; River Mountains 0.65 to 0.76.
Uranium	3.5 to 4.1 ppb	30 ppb	14% of the limit	Erosion of natural deposits. Average 3.8 at each plant.
Total coliform bacteria	0% to 0.5% of monthly samples (average 0.1%)	5 % of samples positive per month	10% of the limit	Naturally present in the environment.
Nitrate (as nitrogen)	0.41 to 0.63 ppm	10 ppm	6% of the limit	Fertilizer runoff; septic tanks and sewage; erosion of natural deposits. Alfred Merritt Smith 0.41 to 0.61; River Mountains 0.45 to 0.63.
Selenium	1.9 to 3 ppb	50 ppb	6% of the limit	Petroleum refineries; erosion of natural deposits; mines. Average 2.5 at each plant.
Barium	0.1 ppm	2 ppm	5% of the limit	Erosion of natural deposits; metal refineries; drilling wastes. Both treatment plants.

Other measurements (no legal limit)

Substance	Level found	Usual source
Lithium	39 to 43 ppb (average 42)	Naturally occurring metal.

Source: City of Henderson Department of Utility Services, annual water quality report, published 2026 (2025 data). The city's report lists no violations and says all regulated contaminants were within safe and allowable limits in 2025. Last checked 22 October 2026. These are the utility's own figures; we don't produce or adjust them.

Reading down the list, four lines deserve a closer look:

Copper came nearest its limit. Nine in ten homes tested had 1.1 ppm or less against an action level of 1.3, and two of the 57 samples went over it. Copper at the tap comes from household plumbing, not from the lake.
Lead: the 90th-percentile figure was 3.8 ppb against 15. A single sample reached 101 ppb. The report explains that a few high samples are permitted as long as the 90th percentile stays under the action level, and it warns that infants and children who drink water above that level could see delays in physical or mental development.
Trihalomethanes, formed when chlorine meets natural organic matter, peaked at a running average of 63 ppb at one sampling site, against a limit of 80.
Bromate, a byproduct of the ozone both plants use, ran a little higher at River Mountains (average 4.2) than at Alfred Merritt Smith (3.2). The limit is 10.

The city also tested for lithium under EPA’s fifth round of monitoring for unregulated chemicals: 39 to 43 ppb. There is no legal limit for it yet.

Lead: what the city says to do

Henderson says its own network has no lead pipes or lead service lines, so any lead at your tap comes from inside the property. Homes built before 1989, when lead solder was banned in residential construction, are the ones to think about. The city’s advice: if water has sat in the pipes for hours, run it for a while first (a shower or a load of dishes does the job), and consider a filter certified by an accredited certifier to reduce lead. It will arrange testing if you are concerned. If someone in your home is pregnant or you are feeding an infant, ask your doctor about lead too.

Henderson water hardness

Here the city’s figure matters more for your appliances than for your health. Henderson describes its water as “very hard”, typically 304 parts per million, or 18 grains per gallon, a little above the 16 the Las Vegas Valley Water District gives for most of the valley. The city recommends setting a softener between 16 and 19; we use its own 18, which is the dial number in the box above. For sizing and salt at that hardness, see our page on water softeners in Henderson, NV; the softener settings guide covers how to enter it.

Henderson hard water and drinking water solutions

Match the fix to the problem, because no single device does everything:

Scale on fixtures and in appliances, spotted glasses: that’s hardness, and a softener set to 18 deals with it. It doesn’t make the water any safer to drink.
Chlorine taste or smell: a carbon filter on a pitcher or under the sink.
Minerals in your drinking glass, or lead worries in an older house: an under-sink unit certified for what you want removed. Our guide to reverse osmosis in Las Vegas explains what that kind removes and what it wastes.

Check which supplier serves your street

Not every Henderson address is on the city’s water. Some ZIP codes along the border with Las Vegas and unincorporated Clark County are split between Henderson and the water district, and their numbers differ. Our Las Vegas water hardness by ZIP code lookup shows which supplier covers each ZIP. Boulder City, next door, buys the same treated lake water but tests its own pipes; its results are on is Boulder City tap water safe to drink. For the rest of the valley, start at can you drink tap water in Las Vegas.

Sources for this page

City of Henderson Department of Utility Services · annual water quality report, revised June 2026 (2025 data) · checked 22 October 2026 · every figure in the results table, compliance statement, water source and treatment plants, Henderson plant out of service, lead and copper sampling and advice, service line inventory, hardness, recommended setting, hard water described as nontoxic.
Las Vegas Valley Water District · water quality summary for the valley · 2026 (2025 data) · the valley’s 16 grains per gallon, for comparison.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · service area boundaries of public water systems, via our ZIP lookup · checked October 2026 · ZIP codes split between suppliers.

Questions we get asked

Where does Henderson get its water from?: All of it starts as Rocky Mountain snow, travels down the Colorado River and is stored in Lake Mead. The Southern Nevada Water Authority treats it at one of two plants and the city delivers it.
Does Henderson have lead pipes?: Not in the city's own system. Henderson says it finished a service line inventory in October 2024 and certified it has no lead or galvanized-requiring-replacement lines. Some homes built before 1989 can have copper pipes joined with lead solder.
How do I tell if my tap water is safe to drink?: Start with your utility's yearly report, which lists every regulated substance it found against the legal limit. For your own pipes, only a test at your faucet answers it; Henderson asks residents who want a lead test to email its lead and copper team (address in the report).
Is Henderson's hard water a health risk?: No. The city's report says the calcium and magnesium that make its water hard are nontoxic and that the effects, such as chalky build-up and spotted glasses, are solely aesthetic.