Henrico County Water
What Henrico County’s 2025 Water Quality Report says about the water reaching your home, and what you can change once it gets there.
Henrico’s 2025 report lists no violations, and the county notes that detecting a substance doesn’t mean water is unsafe to drink. 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
Henrico’s water comes from the James River. Between July 2024 and June 2025, homes received an average of more than 25 million gallons a day from the county’s own treatment plant and about 13 million gallons a day from the City of Richmond’s plant. Henrico’s 2025 report lists results for both sources, so this page shows both.
Chloramine in Henrico water
Henrico’s 2025 report lists chloramine for both of the county’s sources. Water from Henrico’s own plant had a highest running annual average of 3.1 ppm, with individual readings from 0.01 to 4.9 ppm. Water purchased from the City of Richmond had 3.8 ppm, with readings from 2.9 to 5.1 ppm. Both are under EPA’s 4.0 ppm limit, which applies to the running average, so individual readings above 4 aren’t a violation.
Why there’s chloramine after carbon filtration
At Henrico’s plant, sediment is settled out, ozone provides primary disinfection, and the water then passes through deep beds of granular activated carbon that remove turbidity, tastes, odors and organic compounds.
Chloramine is added after that carbon step, on purpose, as a secondary disinfectant that protects the water on its way through the pipes to your home. The county also adds fluoride and a corrosion inhibitor.
So fully treated Henrico water still carries chloramine when it arrives. 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 the Henrico County 2025 Water Quality Report. The report lists results for both of the county’s sources: its own treatment plant and water purchased from the City of Richmond. Where it gives figures for both, both are shown here, and Henrico’s card on the Local Water page shows the higher of the two. For Richmond’s own lead and copper sampling, see the Richmond page.
| Chloramines | County plant: 3.1 ppm highest running annual average, individual readings 0.01–4.9 ppm. Richmond-supplied water: 3.8 ppm, readings 2.9–5.1 ppm. EPA limit 4.0. |
|---|---|
| TTHMs | County plant: 37.3 ppb, individual results 0.6–53 ppb. Richmond-supplied water: 39 ppb, 13–59 ppb. EPA limit 80. |
| HAA5 | County plant: 30.5 ppb, individual results up to 49 ppb. Richmond-supplied water: 24 ppb, up to 45 ppb. EPA limit 60. |
| PFAS (“forever chemicals”) | EPA UCMR 5 testing, 2025: PFOA 1.1 ppt average (0.8–2.9), PFOS 0.37 ppt (up to 0.61), PFNA 0.51 ppt (up to 2.2), PFHxS 0.39 ppt, GenX 0.82 ppt (up to 1.8). EPA’s PFOA and PFOS limits are 4.0 ppt each. These results are for the county’s plant; Richmond’s 2025 report says its 2024 EPA testing found none of the compounds analyzed, including 29 PFAS. |
| Lead | Under 1 ppb at the 90th percentile; 0 of 52 homes above the action level (2024 sampling). |
| Copper | 0.154 ppm at the 90th percentile; 0 of 52 homes above the action level. |
| Sodium | County plant: 22.7 ppm, slightly above the 20 ppm guideline for people on very low-sodium diets. Richmond-supplied water: 14.3 ppm. |
| Fluoride | County plant: 0.80 ppm. Richmond-supplied water: 0.20 ppm, up to 0.78. EPA limit 4.0. |
| Nitrate | County plant: 0.40 ppm. Richmond-supplied water: 0.27 ppm. EPA limit 10. |
| Not listed in the 2025 report | Hardness, pH, total dissolved solids, alkalinity, sulfate, chloride 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 Henrico County 2025 Water Quality ReportCity of Richmond 2025 Consumer Confidence ReportEPA, 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. Henrico’s 2025 testing found low levels of several PFAS (“forever chemicals”), including PFOA averaging 1.1 ppt, under EPA’s 4.0 ppt limit, and EPA research shows reverse osmosis reduces PFAS.
Read the research EPA treatment technologies
See the system and pricingDo Henrico homes need a softener?
Henrico’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.