Hanover County Water
What Hanover County’s 2025 Water Quality Report says about the water reaching your home, and what you can change once it gets there.
Hanover’s 2025 report lists no violations: every contaminant in its table is marked as meeting the standard. We don’t sell filtration because the water is unsafe. We help homeowners change what they’d rather not have at every tap and in the glass.
Where your water comes from
This page covers Hanover’s Suburban Water System, the county’s main public water system, which includes the Mechanicsville area. It’s supplied by two rivers: the James River, through the City of Richmond’s and Henrico County’s treatment plants, and the North Anna River, through Hanover’s own Doswell treatment plant. The county’s contract with the City of Richmond provides most of its supply capacity.
Many Hanover homes are on private wells instead, and these figures don’t apply to a well. We don’t currently service homes on private wells. The county also runs a few small community systems that have their own reports.
Chloramine in Hanover water
Hanover’s 2025 report lists a highest running annual average of 3.1 ppm for chloramine, with individual readings from 0.7 to 4.1 ppm. That’s under EPA’s 4.0 ppm limit, which applies to the running average, so a single reading above 4 isn’t a violation.
Why the water still carries chloramine
Chloramine is added at the treatment plants on purpose, as a disinfectant that protects the water on its way through the pipes to your home. Hanover also adds fluoride.
So treated Hanover water still carries chloramine when it reaches your faucet. That’s by design. It’s also what can give tap and shower water a chlorine smell and taste, and a whole-home catalytic carbon system can reduce it at your main water line.
2025 figures
As published in Hanover County’s 2025 Water Quality Report for the Suburban Water System.
| Chloramines | 3.1 ppm highest running annual average, individual readings 0.7–4.1 ppm. EPA limit 4.0. |
|---|---|
| TTHMs | 37 ppb highest locational running annual average, individual results 18–53 ppb. EPA limit 80. |
| HAA5 | 31 ppb highest locational running annual average, individual results 14–41 ppb. EPA limit 60. |
| PFAS (“forever chemicals”) | EPA UCMR 5 testing, 2024 and 2025: eight sampling events at both of the system’s main entry points. Not detected: every PFAS compound tested, including PFOA and PFOS, was below the reporting level. EPA’s PFOA and PFOS limits are 4.0 ppt each. |
| Lead | Not detected at the 90th percentile; no samples above the action level. The report doesn’t list how many homes were sampled. |
| Copper | 0.07 ppm at the 90th percentile; no samples above the action level. |
| Sodium | 28 ppm highest result (individual results 14–28 ppm), above the 20 ppm guideline for people on very low-sodium diets. The report advises people on strict sodium diets to avoid water above 20 ppm. |
| Fluoride | Up to 0.9 ppm. EPA limit 4.0. |
| Nitrate | 0.1–0.4 ppm. EPA limit 10. |
| Not listed in the 2025 report | Hardness, pH, total dissolved solids, alkalinity and E. coli, all of which Richmond’s 2025 report includes. Utility reports generally list what was detected or required that year, so an item not listed may not have been detected or tested. |
Source Hanover County 2025 Water Quality ReportHanover County utilitiesEPA, Chloramines in Drinking Water
What this means for your home
If you’d like less chlorine smell and taste at every faucet, shower and bath, whole-home catalytic carbon at your main water line is designed to reduce chloramine before water reaches any tap.
For drinking water, optional reverse osmosis adds a separate, dedicated faucet beside your kitchen faucet. Hanover’s 2024 and 2025 EPA testing found no PFAS (“forever chemicals”). Many people still choose reverse osmosis for the taste of their drinking water, and it can reduce fluoride if you’d prefer less.
See the system and pricingDo Hanover homes need a softener?
Hanover’s 2025 report doesn’t list hardness, so there’s no county figure to point to. We don’t add a softener to every system. If you’re seeing scale or spotting you’d like to reduce, tell us and we’ll talk it through.
Read the softener guideReady to learn what makes sense for your home?
Tell us a little about your home and we’ll help you determine the right next step.