Northshore and south shore water are two different waters
Updated August 2026 · Numbers from each system's published 2025 report
The causeway connects two water worlds that share almost nothing. North of the lake, homes drink groundwater pumped from aquifers. South of it, homes drink the Mississippi River, treated at scale. Which one runs through your pipes decides whether your water is hard, which disinfectant rides along with it, what your fixtures look like in five years, and what equipment earns a place in your house.
Where each side's water comes from
Northshore systems pump from the Southern Hills aquifer system, rainwater that filtered through sand for centuries before a well brought it up. It arrives naturally clean of mineral load, which is why nearly every published hardness figure north of the lake reads soft. Covington's city system publishes 3.5 mg/L, which is about as soft as water gets anywhere in the country.
South shore systems intake the Mississippi River, water that drained half a continent before reaching the treatment plant. The plants in New Orleans, Jefferson Parish, and the Westbank clarify it, disinfect it, and send it out carrying the mineral load a river picks up along the way. East Jefferson publishes 78 mg/L of hardness, the Westbank systems publish about 81, and New Orleans Carrollton publishes 100.7. Even the lowest of those figures is about twenty times Covington's number.
What changes at your house
Hardness is the biggest split. A family on East Jefferson's 78 mg/L water runs roughly 71 pounds of hardness minerals through the house in a year. Those minerals can become scale on heater elements, fixtures, and water-using appliances. The same family in Covington runs only a few pounds. This is why a softener belongs in the Metairie recommendation and why a softener rarely belongs in a Northshore quote.
Disinfectant is the second split. The south shore runs chloramine everywhere, from New Orleans at 3.3 ppm to the Westbank systems between 1.6 and 2.8. The Northshore is a patchwork: the cities run chloramine at lower levels, and dozens of small parish and private systems run free chlorine anywhere from 0.7 to 2.3 ppm. Which chemical your system uses decides how the taste behaves and what removes it.
Wells are a Northshore-only story. Rural St. Tammany and Tangipahoa hold thousands of private wells with no published report at all, and those homes start from a free lab test instead of a lookup. South of the lake, essentially everyone is on a utility.
The same complaint means different things on each shore
- Cloudy glasses on the Northshore usually mean etching or silica film, while south of the lake they usually mean mineral spots that vinegar dissolves. The ten-second checks are here.
- Pool taste on the south shore comes from chloramine at higher residuals, and in most Northshore towns it comes from free chlorine at lower ones. The fix is carbon either way, and the media and contact time are sized to the chemical.
- Orange staining south of the lake is rare and usually a plumbing problem, while on the north side it is a classic well symptom with a known fix.
What this means for equipment
On the Northshore, the usual package is whole-home catalytic carbon for the disinfectant plus reverse osmosis at the kitchen sink, with a softener only where a test supports one. South of the lake, the standard package adds a dedicated softener because the published hardness supports it. Well homes get their own corrective package built from lab results. The full lineup is on what we install, and every recommendation starts from the water's actual numbers.
Read your side's actual numbers
We keep plain-language versions of the published reports for neighborhoods across both shores: St. Tammany, Tangipahoa, Orleans, and Jefferson, down to the subdivision where systems differ. Put in your address and see which water you actually have.