Los Angles is one of the biggest cities in California and is home to many famous attractions like Hollywood. While life in Lon Angels may seem quite glamorous and fun, this beautiful city struggles with water hardness and quality of water. The water projects run in Southern California including LA, play an important role in the agriculture industry of California.
Even though California has put a complete ban on salt water softeners, there is still much concern about water hardness and quality in Los Angeles. To learn more about water hardness in Los Angeles, and if you need to use a water softer, read further below:
What is Water Hardness?
Water hardness is the specific amount of magnesium and calcium that dissolves in the water. Water hardness becomes very extreme when dissolved in high amounts of minerals such as magnesium and calcium. It leaves a firm residue on your skin after washing, as soap tends to react with the minerals. Hard water has a harmful impact on the environment and many other things. However, it can also be beneficial to a certain extent.
Groundwater is one of the main places where Los Angeles gets its water supply. According to a few results from hydraflow, around 40% of water is used on average, but groundwater usage depends on the location, as not everyone has access to it. Some places in southern California depend on surface water if they don’t have access to ground water.
With so much groundwater usage, water hardness is a great threat to groundwater as the water goes through the rock and soil dissolving small amounts of minerals and carries them towards the groundwater supplier. A city like Los Angeles has to put in a lot of work to soften the water supply, and officials are working towards that.
Water Hardness in Los Angeles County
On average, California suffers from the most water hardness as the water hardness level is around 100-300 PPM. In Los Angles, the water hardness level is on an average of 127 PPM and even higher in other cities like San Jose and San Francisco. Water hardness in the Los Angeles County has a drastic impact on California’s Agriculture.
It even puts more pressure on the state of California as it is one of the largest economies in the United States of America. California on the whole is an international exporter of agriculture products yet alone only being the top natural agriculture producing state. Some of the top crops California exports are grapes, almonds and dairy.
The water in Los Angeles is rich in calcium, and this is one of the main causes that results in water hardness. Most of the food processing plants and farms in Los Angeles have to suffer the scale build up in their technical equipment and irrigation production because of the high water flow that happens almost every day.
This is also accompanied by the polluted and contaminated soil and waterways that have increased due to lack of human responsibility and poor control on chemical waste. What’s more, farmers in Los Angeles have been working towards more eco-friendly solutions that will not only help increase the quality of the crops, but also save water and the yield of crops.
Using Water Softeners in Los Angeles County
Water softeners are a type of filtration system that works towards removing high concentration of magnesium and calcium, which are the main minerals causing water hardness. With the help of a water softener, the hard water minerals get filtered out and gradually the softened water allows the water softening system to flow properly.
Water softeners work through the positive and negative magnetic system. They use an ion exchange system to eradicate all hard water minerals from the water sources. While the ion exchange process works through, the hard water ions get caught on the resin and in turn exchanged for sodium, leading to soft water.
Do I Need a Water Softener?
Water softeners are not recommended for Southern Californians including people living in the city of Los Angeles. Installing a water softening system to deal with water hardening only opens up the way for bigger problems. Using water softener means the water you use includes potassium or sodium and both of these are not safe to drink. In addition, homeowners will have to invest in a filtration system that will make water safe to drink.
Using a waster softener also means that the water going down the drain will obviously end up in waterways filled with either high levels of potassium, chloride or sodium chloride. This in turn causes a threat to wildlife and affects the growth of crop depending on the water. So, the more water softeners people use in Los Angeles, the more salt is being trashed into water sources. This is one of the main reasons why almost 25 communities in California have banned water softeners throughout the state.
While using water softener might not be the best option for people Los Angeles, it still has a few benefits. Mentioned below are a few benefits of using water softeners:
- Helps you achieve soft skin and silkier hair
- Reduces the buildup of scale and scum
- Good laundry protectant
- Protects pipeline systems
- Tastes better
Final Words
Now that you are aware of the level of water hardness in Los Angeles, it’s time to be a responsible citizen and do whatever you can to reduce this. Using water softeners makes life for a homeowner much easier, but is it the best option? Hopefully, this article helped you understand that, and will make you do the right thing. Instead of water softeners, consider using a water filter system, and you can get some of the best ones for your home from https://filtersmart.com/
