Bécancour Water Hardness & Quality Report (2026)

Bécancour's drinking water is managed by the Ville de Bécancour, drawing from the St. Lawrence River — Bécancour is a large industrial city on the south shore of the St. Lawrence directly across from Trois-Rivières in the Centre-du-Québec administrative region, home to the Complexe industriel de Bécancour (one of North America's largest industrial park complexes at 60,000+ acres), including the Gentilly-2 Nuclear Generating Station (now under decommissioning), a Norsk Hydro magnesium smelter (now closed), Alcoa aluminium, and a cluster of petrochemical and industrial facilities served by the deep-water St. Lawrence port, making Bécancour one of Quebec's most important industrial zones. Water undergoes coagulation, sedimentation, filtration, UV disinfection, and chloramination, meeting all Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality (GCDWQ) requirements. Hardness measures 92.5 mg/L (5.4 gpg) — classified as moderately hard by Health Canada, consistent with the Mauricie-Centre-du-Québec south shore St. Lawrence supply.

Bécancour draws from the St. Lawrence River at the Centre-du-Québec south shore — the St. Lawrence at Bécancour carries water from the upper river mixed with the Bécancour River and the Central Appalachian tributaries of the south shore. The 92.5 mg/L is consistent with the south shore Mauricie-Centre-du-Québec corridor (Mauricie reference ~108 mg/L from reference data), slightly softer due to the dilution from the Bécancour River Appalachian input. Water quality reports are published under Ministère de l'Environnement oversight.

At 92.5 mg/L, Bécancour homes experience light to moderate scale deposits — cleaning every two months is adequate. Health Canada lead precautionary guidance applies to pre-1975 properties in the historic Bécancour townsite communities (Gentilly, Sainte-Angèle-de-Laval, Précieux-Sang) that were merged into the amalgamated city of Bécancour in 1965.