Healthy Home Headlines ranked 9 engine/data/water towns in iron, sorted by severity score. Every number below comes straight from the source data, not an estimate.
1. Silex (Lincoln County, MO)
Severity score: 9
Silex made the news for the wrong reason: its water failed the EPA on radium so badly the city handed out bottled water to every resident for nearly two years. Combined radium hit 7.7 pCi/L against a 5 limit, and the city's own report warns it can raise cancer risk over years of drinking. On top of that you are...
2. Bethalto (Madison County, IL)
Severity score: 8
If you live in Bethalto, you already know the story - brown water out of the tap, a metallic taste, and that gritty manganese and iron that stains your sinks, rings your toilet bowl, and leaves orange streaks on the tub. At 12-15 grains of hardness, that same water cakes scale on your faucets and shower glass, leaves...
3. Foley (Lincoln County, MO)
Severity score: 8
Foley sits in the Mississippi River bottoms, and bottom-land water is the worst kind for your home: hard, iron-heavy, and prone to that rotten-egg sulfur smell. Expect water that typically tests "very hard" (est. 15-25 grains/gallon) - enough to leave chalky scale on every faucet, fight your soap into a film on skin...
4. Labadie (Franklin County, MO)
Severity score: 8
If you live in Labadie, your water is VERY HARD - about 18 grains per gallon of dissolved rock straight out of the ground. That is the chalky film on your faucets and shower glass, the soap and shampoo that never lather, the dull film on your skin and hair, the spots on every dish, and the scale quietly choking your...
5. Pacific (Franklin County, MO)
Severity score: 8
Pacific runs entirely on groundwater wells, and that water is VERY hard at about 19 grains per gallon - that is the chalky scale crusting your faucets and shower glass, the film that leaves your skin tight and your hair dull and straw-like, and the mineral buildup quietly cooking your water heater to an early death....
6. Washington (Franklin County, MO)
Severity score: 8
Washington's city water is VERY hard - about 16 grains per gallon - so you're fighting chalky scale on faucets and shower glass, film that won't rinse off your skin and hair, and a water heater that's quietly crusting over and dying years early. Iron at 0.43 mg/L runs over the federal guideline, which is what stains...
7. Gerald (Franklin County, MO)
Severity score: 7
Gerald's tap is classic deep Missouri dolomite groundwater: very hard at about 17.8 grains per gallon, so you're feeling it every day - filmy skin that never rinses clean, dull flat hair, spotty dishes, and chalky scale crusting your faucets and showerheads. That mineral is also caking the inside of your water heater...
8. Truesdale (Warren County, MO)
Severity score: 7
Truesdale water is legal, but it comes straight out of two city wells off South St. and Spoede Ln. - and it's VERY hard at about 14.5 grains, nearly double St. Louis. That hardness is the crusty white scale on your faucets and shower glass, the film that leaves your skin tight and your hair dull, and the mineral...
9. Villa Ridge (Franklin County, MO)
Severity score: 7
If your skin feels tight after a shower and your hair never quite rinses clean, blame the water - Villa Ridge runs about 18 grains per gallon, dead-center "very hard." That mineral load is what crusts your faucets white, fogs your glassware, leaves a film in the tub, and quietly chokes your water heater with scale...