Water filtration and softeners in Des Moines, Iowa
Des Moines is served by Des Moines Water Works, one of only four water producers inside Central Iowa Water Works. The Fleur Drive treatment plant and the nitrate removal facility that has made headlines for two straight summers are both here, which means Des Moines homeowners are closer to this story than anyone else in the metro.
Water utility: Des Moines Water Works
Role in Central Iowa Water Works: water producer
County: Polk County
June 2026 watering ban: Covered by the 8 June 2026 mandatory lawn watering ban
What being on Des Moines Water Works means for your house
Des Moines Water Works produces water, it does not just buy it, so the treatment calls that keep central Iowa under the federal nitrate limit get made at plants inside your own city limits. It also supplies Pleasant Hill and Windsor Heights, so those households are looking at the same numbers you are.
Here is what that means day to day. The Des Moines supply leans hard on river water out of the Raccoon and the Des Moines, so the taste of your tap moves around through the year and your nitrate is seasonal instead of flat. Chlorine taste and odor will respond to point-of-entry carbon. Nitrate will not. That one needs reverse osmosis at whichever tap you actually drink from.
Des Moines Water Works customers were covered by the mandatory lawn watering ban the CIWW board enacted on 8 June 2026, and by the region's first ban in June 2025.
Which system a Des Moines house usually needs
Most of the Des Moines homes we test come out wanting a softener for the hardness and an under-sink reverse osmosis unit for the drinking water, and no whole-home carbon filter at all. The exception is a household that notices the chlorine most in the shower, where point-of-entry carbon is the only thing that reaches.
Pull the Des Moines Water Works Consumer Confidence Report for the system-wide figures. It covers Pleasant Hill and Windsor Heights too. Then let us read your own tap, because the system average is not what comes out of your faucet.
Questions we get asked
Who provides drinking water in Des Moines?
Des Moines Water Works, which is one of twelve founding members of Central Iowa Water Works and one of only four water producers in the system. CIWW wholesales the water; Des Moines Water Works runs the local distribution system, sets your rates and handles your customer service. It also supplies Pleasant Hill and Windsor Heights as service customers.
Was Des Moines included in the 2026 lawn watering ban?
Yes. Customers of Des Moines Water Works were covered when the Central Iowa Water Works board enacted Stage 3 of its Water Use Plan on 8 June 2026. Des Moines was also covered by the first such ban in June 2025.
Is nitrate worse in Des Moines than in the suburbs?
Not in the water that reaches your tap, because the whole CIWW system is treated to the same federal standard of 10 mg/L. What is different is proximity to the source of the problem: the rivers and the treatment plants that handle the seasonal load are in and around Des Moines.
Get a reading on your Des Moines tap
You live closest to the plants that handle this, which does not mean your tap is any different from your neighbor's. Twenty minutes at your kitchen sink and you will know.