What's actually in New Orleans tap water
Updated August 2026 · From the SWBNO 2025 water quality report
Short answer: it is treated Mississippi River water, disinfected with chloramine, and the utility's published report tells you almost everything worth knowing. Here is the plain-English version of what is in it by the time it reaches Uptown, Mid-City, or the Marigny.
It starts in the river
The Sewerage and Water Board pulls water from the Mississippi and treats it at the Carrollton plant, which moves about 137 million gallons a day for the east bank. Algiers has its own smaller plant on the west bank. River water arrives carrying silt and organic material that groundwater never sees, so the treatment train is long: coagulation, settling, a chloramine contact basin, then filtration.
The chloramine rides all the way to your tap
New Orleans disinfects with chloramine, the longer-lasting cousin of chlorine, and the residual is still in the water at your shower head. That is by design, and it is what people taste in coffee and in the first glass of the day. Chloramine does not gas off in a pitcher and a basic fridge filter barely dents it. Getting it out takes catalytic carbon, the media processed specifically to break it apart.
The byproducts number is genuinely low
When a disinfectant does its work it leaves traces called disinfection byproducts, and this is a place the report deserves credit: the 2025 compliance average ran 28 parts per billion against a federal limit of 80. Plenty of systems run far closer to the line.
New Orleans water is hard
The 2025 report lists finished-water hardness at 100.7 milligrams per liter for the Carrollton system, about 5.9 grains per gallon. Algiers lists 70.7 milligrams per liter, about 4.1 grains. Both are hard enough to form scale inside water heaters, fixtures, and water-using appliances, which is why a dedicated softener belongs in the recommendation.
Lead, in plain terms
The published numbers first: in the 2025 sampling round, the 90th percentile lead result was 6 parts per billion, below the federal action level of 15, with 2 of 85 samples testing above it. The utility states there is no detectable lead in water leaving its plants. The open question in New Orleans is the service lines, the small pipes between the main and older houses. SWBNO is still building its inventory of which lines are lead, offers free filter pitchers to customers whose lines are lead or unknown, and is working toward the federal deadline of replacing all lead service lines by the end of 2037.
What we do about it is specific: for older homes, reverse osmosis with certified lead reduction at the kitchen tap treats the water you actually drink and cook with. It is the piece of equipment built for exactly this question.
See your neighborhood's page
We keep report pages for Uptown, Mid-City, Lakeview, Gentilly, the French Quarter and Marigny, and Algiers. Type your address on the home page and the right one comes up.