Highland Park Water Starts With AnAdvanced Municipal Treatment Process

Highland Park is not supplied by Dallas Water Utilities during normal operation

Highland Park purchases its regular supply from the Dallas County Park Cities Municipal Utility District.

The Park Cities MUD draws surface water associated with Grapevine Reservoir and the Elm Fork of the Trinity River. Its treatment plant serves both Highland Park and University Park.

Highland Park also maintains two Dallas Water Utilities interconnections for emergency and maintenance use, but Dallas is not the town’s normal primary supplier.

That distinction gives Highland Park a genuinely separate water story from the surrounding City of Dallas.

The Park Cities plant already uses substantial treatment

The shared Park Cities treatment process is more advanced than the generic phrase “city water” suggests.

Official Park Cities materials describe:

• Screening of incoming raw water
• Lime and ferric sulfate treatment
• Flocculation and clarification
• Granular activated carbon, sand and support-media filtration
• Ultrafiber membrane filtration
• Final chlorine-and-ammonia disinfection
• Large underground finished-water storage

The lime stage reduces hardness before the water reaches Highland Park, and the GAC plus membrane process provides a sophisticated municipal barrier.

The current Highland Park report confirms the effect: average tap-water hardness was approximately 42 mg/L as calcium carbonate, with a range of 28–93 mg/L—about 1.6–5.4 grains per gallon.

That is distinctly softer than many other DFW municipal supplies.

A generic city page claiming Highland Park receives 7–11 grains per gallon would be wrong according to the current report.

Strong municipal treatment does not make residential treatment pointless

Highland Park’s 2025 report states that the town met or exceeded applicable state and federal water-quality requirements and retains TCEQ’s Superior Public Water System designation.

This is not a page about rescuing dangerously untreated water. It is about defining the difference between excellent public treatment and one household’s preferred final water.

The finished water still carries a chloramine residual. Highland Park reported a 2025 average of approximately 2.99 mg/L, with results from 1.20–3.60 mg/L.

The report also listed:

• HAA5 locational running annual averages of approximately 9–11 ppb at the two reported sample locations
• TTHM locational running annual averages of approximately 4 ppb
• Nitrate at approximately 1.11 ppm
• Total dissolved solids at approximately 248 mg/L

Municipal treatment has reduced many constituents substantially. It has not made the water chemically blank.

EWG applies a much lower independent standard

EWG’s Highland Park profile reports:

• HAA5: 7.19 ppb compared with EWG’s 0.1 ppb guideline and the federal 60 ppb group limit
• TTHM: 3.49 ppb compared with EWG’s 0.15 ppb guideline and the federal 80 ppb limit
• Nitrate: 0.792 ppm compared with EWG’s 0.14 ppm guideline and the federal 10 ppm limit
• PFHxS: 1.65 parts per trillion compared with EWG’s 0.001 ppt guideline

Highland Park’s current municipal report separately lists PFHxS at an average of 0.0033 micrograms per liter in its 2023 UCMR5 data, equivalent to 3.3 ppt. It also reports PFBA, PFBS, PFHxA and PFPeA detections under the federal unregulated monitoring program.

The EWG profile and the current CCR use different averaging windows, so their PFHxS values should not be presented as though one is a correction of the other.

The proper conclusion is narrower and stronger: even a highly treated municipal supply can contain detectable chloramine, treatment byproducts and PFAS compounds that a homeowner may prefer to reduce further at home.

What Water Fixers DFW has encountered in Highland Park

Water Fixers DFW has completed residential water-treatment work in Highland Park.

The town’s lower hardness changes the softener conversation. It does not eliminate it.

A home testing near the low end of the reported range may require relatively modest softening capacity. A property receiving water near the higher end, or one whose owner strongly dislikes any spotting or hardness feel, may still gain clear value from ion exchange.

The mistake would be installing and programming Highland Park equipment as though the water were identical to a 10- or 14-grain North Texas supply.

Private plumbing, water heaters, recirculation, existing treatment and household flow still shape the final design. Those considerations are legitimate without resorting to assumptions about home value, fixture materials or lifestyle.

A refined Highland Park treatment strategy

1. Clarion Softening via Water Fixers Clarion Elite™

Clarion Elite addresses the remaining calcium and magnesium hardness.

Because the municipal plant already performs lime softening and current hardness is relatively low, Clarion Elite should be sized and programmed with precision. The goal is polished soft-water performance without unnecessary resin volume or excessive regeneration.

2. Whole-Home Filtration via Water Fixers Carbonyx Elite™

Carbonyx Elite provides the whole-home catalytic carbon stage for the residual chloramine and for appropriate taste, odor, organic-compound or disinfection-byproduct goals.

The fact that the Park Cities plant already uses granular activated carbon does not make residential carbon redundant. Municipal carbon is one stage within the treatment plant. Highland Park then intentionally maintains chloramine for distribution after treatment.

Carbonyx Elite is the final household barrier that treats the residual entering the property, provided its media volume and contact time match the home’s flow.

3. Kitchen Purifier via Water Fixers ClaRO™

ClaRO provides point-of-use reverse osmosis for drinking and cooking water.

This is the more relevant stage for homeowners seeking a more selective barrier for nitrate, PFAS and other dissolved constituents reported through the CCR or EWG profile, subject to membrane certification and operating conditions.