The Kansas City Board of Public Utilities says its tap water is safe and that the utility has again earned two of the drinking water industry’s top national honors, according to BPU’s recently-released 2026 Water Quality Report, which covers testing from the 2025 calendar year.
“BPU is among the top-rated public water utilities in the country,” the report states. The utility points to the Partnership for Safe Water Directors Award, “a distinction held by fewer than one percent of utilities nationwide,” and notes it was the first system in the metro area to win it. BPU also again received the Platinum Award for Utility Excellence from the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies.
The report says BPU’s water “consistently exceeds all federal and state standards,” and it ends its data section with a plain summary: “The bottom line is that the water that is provided to you is safe.”
One bright spot involves PFAS, the long-lasting compounds often called “forever chemicals.” Under a federal monitoring program, BPU tested for 29 of them in 2024 and reported “none of the 29 PFAS compounds were detected in our samples.”
Federal lead guidelines tightening
The 2026 report carries sharper language on lead than BPU’s earlier reports. It now warns, “There is no safe level of lead in drinking water,” and lays out the risks to children, pregnant women, and adults.
New federal rules on copper and lead finalized by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2024 will lower the lead action level from 15 to 10 parts per billion (ppb) in November 2027 and will require utilities to inventory and replace lead service lines. BPU posts a service line inventory on its website so residents can look up whether their pipes are affected.
BPU’s most recent tap sampling, taken in 2023 under a reduced once-every-three-years schedule, found a 90th percentile lead level of 7.5 ppb. That figure sits at half the current 15 ppb action level, but the new, lower 10 ppb level set for 2027 leaves far less margin. Water leaves the Nearman treatment plant lead-free, and lead usually enters from home plumbing and service lines. The utility advises running a tap before drinking when water has sat for hours.
Hard water continues to
KCK’s water is very hard, which is typical of a supply pulled through an aquifer, where water dissolves calcium and magnesium from the surrounding sand and rock. The report lists BPU’s total hardness at about 280 parts per million (as calcium carbonate), which is well above the the 180 ppm “very hard” level. Hardness is not considered a health concern. However, it does create problems with cleaning effectiveness and scale build-up.
Total dissolved solids averaged 510 parts per million in 2025, just over the state’s secondary guideline of 500. Those secondary standards address taste and appearance, not safety, and carry no health limit. Sodium, a concern for residents on restricted diets, decreased slightly to 58 parts per million.
WaterOne backup and a reservoir rebuild
For the first time, the report discloses that BPU drew on its emergency connection with neighboring WaterOne in Johnson County. The utility says the link was “used for emergency purposes to the Argentine system” several times during 2025.
During the year, crews demolished a century-old 12-million-gallon reservoir at the Argentine site and replaced it with a new 7-million-gallon version, and took the site’s 4-million-gallon reservoir out of service for upgrades. A state loan funded the $15 million project. Engineers told the board the work required them to keep “one reservoir in service at all times,” cycling the tanks on and off line through the year. The new reservoir came online by mid-2025, when the general manager reported it was “now in service” at about 7 million gallons.