Cheshire Water Hardness & Quality Report (2026)

Cheshire, Connecticut, in New Haven County — a major central Connecticut New Haven suburban community (Cheshire is a significant New Haven County town — a central Connecticut suburban community known as the 'Bedding Plant Capital of Connecticut' (Cheshire has historically been famous for its ornamental plant nurseries and is one of the most important nursery and floriculture communities in Connecticut); Cheshire is home of Cheshire Academy (a prestigious private boarding and day school — one of Connecticut's distinguished independent secondary schools); Cheshire is also home of the Cheshire Correctional Institution and Manson Youth Institution (significant Connecticut Department of Correction facilities)), a diverse New Haven County community with a primarily working-class, Italian-American, and suburban family population, adjacent to Wallingford and Southington in the central Connecticut corridor, and a community with a strong sense of agricultural and horticultural heritage — draws its municipal water supply via the South Central Connecticut Regional Water Authority. Water hardness in Cheshire measures 15 mg/L — classified as extremely soft.

Cheshire's extremely soft supply reflects the central Connecticut Metacomet Ridge watershed's calcareous-poor Triassic basalt and Hartford Basin arkose geology. The SCCRWA reservoir system drains the Triassic Hartford Basin basalt and arkose (essentially non-calcareous). SCCRWA treatment produces the extremely soft 15 mg/L.

With hardness at 15 mg/L, Cheshire residents enjoy extremely soft water. South Central Connecticut Regional Water Authority consistently delivers water meeting all Connecticut DEEP and EPA Safe Drinking Water Act requirements.