Every water provider has to mail out, or at least post, a yearly water quality report. Almost nobody reads them, and we get it: they’re long, they’re full of acronyms, and at least one is a scanned PDF. So we read them for you. Here’s the short version for each town we serve, from the latest reports (Conroe’s and Tomball’s are for 2024, the rest for 2025).
| Town | Where the water comes from | Chlorine (avg) | Lead (90th percentile) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conroe | Jasper and Catahoula wells, plus Lake Conroe water from SJRA | 0.97 | 0.0012 ppb |
| The Woodlands | 38 SJRA wells (Evangeline and Jasper) blended with Lake Conroe water | 1.73–2.05 | Under 15 ppb in every MUD |
| Oak Ridge North | Two Evangeline wells, plus SJRA Lake Conroe water | 1.34 | 3.44 ppb |
| Shenandoah | Three wells, Gulf Coast aquifer | 1.15 | 0 |
| Montgomery | Three wells, Jasper and Catahoula | 1.49 | 0.634 ppb |
| Magnolia | Five Evangeline wells, plus a link to Grand Oaks MUD | 1.32 | 0.613 ppb |
| Willis | City wells (aquifer not named) | 1.55 | 0.699 ppb |
| Panorama Village | Three wells, two Jasper and one Catahoula | 2.15 | 0 |
| Splendora | Chicot and Jasper wells | 1.49 | 0 |
| Porter (Porter SUD) | Five wells, four Evangeline and one Jasper | 1.13 | 0.592 ppb |
| New Caney (New Caney MUD) | Three district wells | 1.23 | 0 |
| Tomball | Evangeline and Chicot wells | 1.43 | 1.63 ppb |
| Spring (Timber Lane UD, Harris County MUD 82) | Gulf Coast aquifer wells | 1.70 and 1.76 | — |
Chlorine is in mg/L, which is the same thing as ppm in water. The federal action level for lead is 15 ppb. Spring is served by many districts; the two shown are examples, so check your own bill. In The Woodlands, one home in MCMUD 67 tested at 21.4 ppb, though that district’s overall number stayed under the action level.
The short story
It’s mostly well water. Deep wells in the Gulf Coast aquifers, the Jasper, Catahoula, Evangeline and Chicot, supply nearly everybody, and Conroe, The Woodlands and Oak Ridge North blend in treated Lake Conroe water from the San Jacinto River Authority. Every system’s overall lead number is under the action level. That’s the good news, and it’s most of the news.
If your water smells like a swimming pool
That’s chlorine, and it’s there on purpose: it keeps the water clean on the long ride through the pipes. Look at the chlorine column, though. Panorama Village and The Woodlands’ MUDs run about twice what Conroe does. If your water tastes or smells off, the number for your town may be the whole explanation, and a filter at the kitchen sink usually takes care of it. You don’t need a plumber to tell you that.
Two towns worth a closer look
Magnolia’s 2025 report shows one home lead sample over the action level (the system’s overall number stayed well under), one E. coli-positive sample in June 2025, and some missed monitoring and reporting deadlines. Willis’s 2025 report lists an E. coli result over the federal limit in September and a missed public notice, and its service line inventory has no lead but some galvanized lines marked for replacement.
Neither one is a reason to panic. We wrote a calm, plain-English rundown of both: what the Willis and Magnolia reports mean. The one thing to do today is make sure the city has your phone number, so a boil-water notice actually reaches you.
What about hardness?
Only Shenandoah’s report lists it: 12.9 ppm, which is very soft water. Nobody else’s report gives a hardness figure at all, so if you’re wondering whether you need a softener, read this first before anybody sells you one.
The catch: the report stops at your meter
All of this is about the water the city delivers. It says nothing about the pipes between your meter and your faucet, and in older neighborhoods like Oak Ridge North, Panorama Village and Porter Heights, plenty of homes went up before 1980, when galvanized steel pipe was still common. If you’ve got rusty hot water or pressure that’s been slowly fading, your own plumbing is the likelier suspect. Our lead service line explainer covers your side of the meter.
Can’t find your provider? It’s printed on your water bill. In Spring, New Caney and The Woodlands it’s often a MUD or utility district rather than the city, and the report is usually on its website under “water quality.”
If you’d like to know what’s coming out of your own tap rather than the town average, that’s what water testing is for.
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