Water Filtration & Treatment in West Palm Beach

A surface-water city in a groundwater region

Most of South Florida pumps its water from the Biscayne Aquifer. The City of West Palm Beach Public Utilities Department instead draws from lakes fed by a wetland. Its 2025 Water Quality Report notes that only about ten percent of Florida cities use surface water.

The path, according to the city:

1. Rain falls on Grassy Waters Preserve, a wetland of about 23 square miles that the city says can provide roughly 25 billion gallons a year.
2. Water flows by gravity into the M-Canal and east about 16 miles, through Control Structure 4.
3. It reaches Lake Mangonia, then Clear Lake, a twin-lake system of about 1,000 acres.
4. It is pumped from Clear Lake into the water treatment plant.

Backup supplies include occasional water from Lake Okeechobee, an aquifer storage and recovery well, the Renaissance Storm Water Project and the C-17 Canal pump station. In 2025 the city also bought some finished water from the Palm Beach County system.

How the plant treats it

The city describes its Water Treatment Plant as a conventional lime softening facility permitted for up to 47 million gallons a day; the 2025 report says it produces 28 to 36 million. Treatment steps include screening, coagulation and sedimentation, carbon and sand filters, ultraviolet light and chloramine. The UV system, running since February 2019, is described by the city as the largest in Florida, and a powdered activated carbon basin targets taste and odor compounds.

Because the source is open water, the city also monitors for algal toxins during algae season and posts results on its Safe Water Dashboard.

Chloramine most of the year, chlorine in summer

Chloramine is the city's primary disinfectant. The 2025 report lists a highest running annual average total chlorine residual of 3.2 ppm, within the 4 ppm limit. Every year the city switches to free chlorine for 21 days in summer, a step it describes as required, and warns that residents may notice a chlorine odor. If you keep fish or use home dialysis, the city advises getting professional guidance on removing chlorine during that period.

Living Water describes its Puronics whole-home systems as removing chlorine and chloramine, so one system covers both seasons. See chloramine filters in West Palm Beach.

Who is on city water

The city's plant serves West Palm Beach plus the Towns of Palm Beach and South Palm Beach; the 2025 report puts the population served at more than 130,000. Some homes with West Palm Beach mailing addresses sit in unincorporated Palm Beach County and are served by Palm Beach County Water Utilities instead, which draws groundwater from the Biscayne and Floridan Aquifers. The name on your bill tells you which report applies.

A long history. The city's report traces the system back to Henry Flagler, who in 1894 pumped water from the Clear Lake site to supply his Royal Poinciana hotel on Palm Beach island, and who later bought and designed the West Palm Beach water system. The city acquired the plant, the lakes and Grassy Waters Preserve from his company in the 1950s and has upgraded the plant over the years, most visibly with the UV system added in 2019.

Grassy Waters is also an Everglades-type habitat for threatened and endangered wetland plants and animals, according to the city, and water stored there is partly filtered by wetland plants before it ever reaches the canal. That is part of why the city treats protecting the preserve as part of protecting the water supply.

What a home system can and cannot change. Surface water and groundwater behave differently, and that shapes what people notice at the tap:

• Taste and odor can shift slightly with lake conditions; the plant manages this with powdered activated carbon.
• Disinfectant smell changes during the summer chlorine switch.
• Hardness is reduced at the lime softening plant, so scale is usually a smaller concern than in some groundwater cities.

A carbon-based home system smooths out the first two. A softener is only worth it if a test shows hardness you care about.

What usually fits

• Condo or apartment downtown or along the waterfront: under-sink alkaline RO for drinking water.
• Single-family home: a whole-home system for chloramine and chlorine, often with RO in the kitchen.
• Restaurants, hotels and other businesses: ion-exchange softening where equipment needs scale protection.
• Private well: configured from that well's test; see well water in West Palm Beach.

Treated city water meets drinking water standards. Filtration is about taste, odor and comfort; for any specific contaminant, the equipment must be certified for it under the relevant NSF/ANSI standard.

The free in-home test

1. Call, text or WhatsApp Jorge at (305) 793-5974.
2. He tests your tap for chlorine or chloramine, hardness, dissolved solids and pH.
3. He explains the results next to the city's report.
4. If something fits, you get an itemized quote. No obligation.

Every West Palm Beach water page

• Whole-home water filtration
• Chlorine and chloramine filters
• Under-sink reverse osmosis
• Best drinking water system
• Home water testing
• Water softeners
• Water softener vs. filter
• Hard water spots and scale
• Dry, itchy skin after showering
• Rotten egg smell
• Orange and rust stains
• Well water treatment
• PFAS water filters
• Fluoride water filters
• What drives filtration cost
• Reverse osmosis cost factors
• Water softener cost factors

Nearby: Boca Raton and Fort Lauderdale.

Updated 2026-10-17 · Living Waters · Jorge Canela, Water Quality Specialist