By OpenStats · Built from official Canadian sources
Regional estimateWater quality grade
Good
Graded against Health Canada drinking water guidelines
Saint John at 186 mg/L is hard enough to scale kettles, but most residents solve taste and lead at the tap first. Carbon filtration + test strips; whole-house softener only if repeat hardness readings justify it.
OpenStats pick for Saint John’s 186 mg/L hardness — drinking-water carbon first; pitchers do not soften
Higher-flow kitchen carbon for Saint John without dedicating a softener closet
Saint John at 186 mg/L — measure before jumping to a whole-house softener
Consider whole-house softening only if strips confirm 186 mg/L+ is wrecking appliances
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Municipal reports cover the plant. A Tap Score kit tests the water at a Saint John tap for a broader contaminant panel.
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Saint John's drinking water earns Grade B (Good). Hardness is 186 mg/L (very hard), and pH is 7.4 against Health Canada's 6.5–8.5 guideline.
Lead at 0.2 μg/L is below the 5 μg/L maximum, and fluoride is 0.5 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
How Saint John 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.
Mixed surface and groundwater
Research confidence: high
Loch Lomond Drinking Water Treatment Facility
Surface-water plant supplied from Loch Lomond / Latimer Lake watersheds; Latimer Lake pretreatment plus coagulation, dissolved air flotation, filtration, disinfection, and orthophosphate corrosion control; capacity about 75 ML/day; online August 2018.
South Bay Treatment Facility (Spruce Lake Water Treatment Facility)
Treats South Bay Wellfield groundwater for west Saint John; distribution began September 2017.
Saint John Water serves roughly 17,000 customer accounts. Loch Lomond facility supplies east/north/south and part of west; South Bay wells supply about one-third of west-side demand, with the balance from Loch Lomond. Spruce Lake / Ludgate Lake reservoirs now supply industrial raw water (and remain a long-term backup), not residential potable water.
Health parameters meet Health Canada limits; turbidity above the 1 NTU typical target and very hard water.
Health parameters meet Health Canada limits; turbidity exceeds the typical 1 NTU aesthetic target.
Figure 1 · Supply chain
From watershed to tap
New Brunswick · 16 cities in sample
Provincial average: hardness 155 mg/L · pH 7.6 · lead 0.2 μg/L · fluoride 0.6 mg/L
| Parameter | Reading | Health Canada guideline | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardness | 186 mg/L | No health limit (aesthetic) | Compliant |
| pH | 7.4 | 6.5–8.5 | Compliant |
| Lead | 0.2 μg/L | ≤ 5 μg/L | Compliant |
| Fluoride | 0.5 mg/L | ≤ 1.5 mg/L | Compliant |
| Chlorine (free) | 0.7 mg/L | ≤ 4 mg/L | Compliant |
| Turbidity | 2.7 NTU | ≤ 1 NTU (typical target) | Exceeds guideline |
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
Saint John at 186 mg/L is hard enough to scale kettles, but most residents solve taste and lead at the tap first. Carbon filtration + test strips; whole-house softener only if repeat hardness readings justify it.
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