Vegas Valley Water Guide

Laughlin's Colorado River water and your softener

Laughlin is supplied by the Big Bend Water District, which takes its water straight from the Colorado River below Davis Dam rather than from Lake Mead.

How hard is Laughlin water?

Figures published by Big Bend Water District. The dial setting is the number to enter on your softener.

City or areaHow hardRange (grains per gallon)Softener dial settingSource
LaughlinExtremely hardabout 1717Big Bend Water District, water quality summary, 2026 (2025 data)

1. How many people live in your home?

the number your kit shows, in grains per gallon
Your water is
Extremely hardAbout 200 lb of minerals flow into your home each year
Softener size to buy
32,000-grain
the size number on the box
Salt it will use
About 11
40 lb bags a year
Set the hardness dial to
17
recharges about every 8 days

What the dial setting means

This is the number to key into your softener's control head (the box on top of the tank) where it asks for water hardness, often shown as "Hardness" or "gpg". It is how the softener knows how much hardness it is taking out of each gallon.

When the resin inside is full of minerals, the softener recharges: it washes the resin with brine from the salt tank and sends the minerals down the drain. For your household that works out to about every 8 days, and it happens automatically.

Too low a number lets hard water through between recharges. Too high a number makes it recharge sooner than it needs to, using extra salt and water.

The district publishes one average for all of Laughlin. Source: Big Bend Water District, water quality summary, 2026 (2025 data).

Nobody pays to be listed or ranked here, and we don't make, sell, rent or install softeners or filters.

How this figure was measured

Who published it

Water authority
Big Bend Water District
About the authority
The public water district that supplies Laughlin, operated by the Las Vegas Valley Water District. A public agency; no company supplied or paid for this figure.
Type of source
Water quality summary: a table of measured minerals that the utility publishes alongside its annual water quality report, which every U.S. community water system must publish under the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Data year
2026 (2025 data)
Last checked
16 October 2026, against the original document

What the figure is

What was measured
Hardness (average value), in parts per million and grains per gallon: 284 mg/L, published as 17 grains per gallon
Area covered
The whole Laughlin water system
How it was sampled
One average for the system, listed with calcium 73, magnesium 24.7, sodium 95 and total dissolved solids 607, all in parts per million.
Where the water comes from
All of it from the Colorado River, through an intake below Davis Dam and the Big Bend Water Treatment Facility.

How we use it

Figure we use
The document’s own grains-per-gallon figure (17).
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
Hardness varies by street and by season as utilities switch between water sources. A home test result is more exact and overrides this figure.

Below Davis Dam

Big Bend’s intake sits in the Colorado River below Davis Dam, downstream of Lake Mead. The water is treated at the district’s own plant with ozone among other steps. Its minerals are close to the valley’s: the district lists calcium 73, magnesium 24.7, sodium 95 and total dissolved solids 607, all in parts per million.

What that means at home

Laughlin’s 17 grains per gallon is one grain above the Las Vegas Valley’s 16. In practice, the size of softener is the same for most households; you’ll use a little more salt.

Household Softener Salt a year
Two people 24,000 grains about 7 bags
Three people 32,000 grains about 11 bags
Four people 40,000 grains about 14 bags
Five people 48,000 grains about 18 bags

Drinking water

With 607 ppm of dissolved solids, Laughlin water tastes much like valley water. If taste is the issue, a reverse osmosis unit at the kitchen sink is the usual fix; a softener doesn’t change it.

Questions about Laughlin water

How hard is Laughlin water?
The Big Bend Water District's water quality summary for 2026 gives an average hardness of 284 parts per million, which it lists as 17 grains per gallon.
Where does Laughlin's water come from?
All of it comes from the Colorado River, through the district's intake below Davis Dam, and is treated at the Big Bend Water Treatment Facility, which uses ozone.
Who runs Laughlin's water system?
The Big Bend Water District, a Nevada general improvement district created in 1983, operated by the Las Vegas Valley Water District.