Ask Clark: Why Is Plymouth’s Water So Hard, and Can the City Fix It?
In this installment of Ask Clark, resident Roxanne asked a question I get a lot: why is Plymouth’s water so hard, and what stands in the way of treating it at the city level?
Some nearby cities have built citywide water softening, and it’s a fair question whether Plymouth should too. The honest answer is that it comes with real tradeoffs. A citywide system would cost hundreds of millions of dollars, which would mean a tax increase of roughly $500 per household for 20 years.
Many of us already spend about that much on home softeners and salt, but if residents keep running those softeners after the city softens the water, they’d end up paying twice. On the other hand, central softening would protect our pipes and infrastructure and keep a lot of salt out of our wastewater, which is good for the environment.
Right now this is more of a “someday” idea than a plan, and the city hasn’t done a formal study. I think it deserves a real look as part of our long-range planning, so we make the decision with good data instead of guessing. Watch the video below.