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OpenStats picks for Barrie — moderate hardness
Barrie at 129 mg/L is hard enough for kettle scale but often below whole-house softener urgency. Carbon filtration for taste plus hardness strips before you overspend.
Barrie tap water: Grade A, hardness 129 mg/L
By OpenStats · Built from official Canadian sources
Regional estimateA
Water quality grade
Excellent
Graded against Health Canada drinking water guidelines
Lead within guidelinepH in range
Hardness vs provincial average129 mg/L · prov. avg 178 mg/L
Lead vs provincial average0.1 μg/L · prov. avg 0.4 μg/L
Hardness
129 mg/L
Lead
0.1 μg/L
≤ 5 μg/L
pH
7.2
6.5–8.5 range
Hardness
129 mg/L
Hard
Lead
0.1 μg/L
Max: 5 μg/L
pH
7.2
6.5–8.5
Chlorine
0.6 mg/L
Max: 4 mg/L
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Reading this page
Barrie's drinking water earns Grade A (Excellent). Hardness is 129 mg/L (hard), and pH is 7.2 against Health Canada's 6.5–8.5 guideline.
Lead at 0.1 μg/L is below the 5 μg/L maximum, and fluoride is 0.6 mg/L against a guideline of ≤ 1.5 mg/L.
How to use this page: read the headline metric and provincial comparison first, then supply and treatment notes, then the source footer for the underlying dataset.
Watershed to tap
Supply and treatment
How Barrie draws, treats, and distributes drinking water, from municipal and utility publications. Chemistry grades above come from separate parameter records; this section does not invent plant lab figures.
Source type
Mixed surface and groundwater
Research confidence: high
Source waters
- Lake Simcoe (Kempenfelt Bay)
- Deep aquifer groundwater wells
Treatment plants
Barrie Surface Water Treatment Plant
Plant at 20 Royal Parkside Drive treating Kempenfelt Bay / Lake Simcoe water. Intake about 750 m offshore at roughly 26 m depth. Screening, flocculation, membrane filtration, GAC for taste and odour, and chlorination. Rated capacity 60,000 m³/day.
Municipal groundwater wells (multiple sites)
Twelve groundwater wells across the city (Anne Street, John Street, Sarjeant, Johnson, Heritage Park, Centennial Park, Brown Wood, Cross Street and others). Groundwater generally receives sodium silicate for iron and chlorination.
Distribution
Mixed surface/groundwater system with three in-ground storage facilities, seven booster stations, three elevated towers, and roughly 690–700 km of watermains. Neighbourhood source depends on water-supply zone.
All monitored parameters meet Health Canada guidelines.
All health parameters meet Health Canada guidelines with comfortable pH, hardness, and turbidity.
Figure 1 · Supply chain
From watershed to tap
Compared to provincial average
Ontario · 123 cities in sample
Hardness (city vs Ontario avg)129 mg/L
pH (city vs Ontario avg)7.2
Lead (city vs Ontario avg)0.1 μg/L
Fluoride (city vs Ontario avg)0.6 mg/L
Provincial average: hardness 178 mg/L · pH 7.5 · lead 0.4 μg/L · fluoride 0.6 mg/L
Full parameters
| Parameter | Reading | Health Canada guideline | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardness | 129 mg/L | No health limit (aesthetic) | Compliant |
| pH | 7.2 | 6.5–8.5 | Compliant |
| Lead | 0.1 μg/L | ≤ 5 μg/L | Compliant |
| Fluoride | 0.6 mg/L | ≤ 1.5 mg/L | Compliant |
| Chlorine (free) | 0.6 mg/L | ≤ 4 mg/L | Compliant |
| Turbidity | 1 NTU | ≤ 1 NTU (typical target) | Compliant |
Alberta water licences
WaterRegister.ca
On a private well or holding an Alberta water allocation licence? Water Register maps EPA licence records, transfer comparables, and watershed context across the province.
Explore WaterRegister.ca →OpenStats pick
OpenStats picks for Barrie — moderate hardness
Barrie at 129 mg/L is hard enough for kettle scale but often below whole-house softener urgency. Carbon filtration for taste plus hardness strips before you overspend.
As an Amazon Associate, OpenStats earns from qualifying purchases.
· Compare options- Shop on Amazon.caBrita Denali pitcherOpenStats pick for Barrie at 129 mg/L — everyday chlorine taste
- Shop on Amazon.caWaterdrop 15UA under-sink filterSkip the pitcher wait in Barrie
- Shop on Amazon.caVARIFY hardness test stripsConfirm 129 mg/L before a softener
- Shop on Amazon.caBrita replacement filtersRecurring cartridge supply
Source · ECCC / municipal open data (seed). Last updated 2026-09-01. Refreshed on the site's automated schedule.