Sunrise Water Hardness & Quality Report (2026)

Sunrise, Florida, in western Broward County (home of the BB&T Center), draws its municipal water supply from the Biscayne Aquifer via the City of Sunrise Utilities Water Division, with a critically important distinction: Sunrise operates a reverse osmosis (RO) water treatment plant that processes a significant portion of the raw Biscayne Aquifer supply (naturally 250–350 mg/L hardness) through membrane treatment, then blends the RO permeate with conventionally treated Biscayne water. Water hardness in Sunrise measures 79.5 mg/L — classified as moderately soft, dramatically lower than neighboring Broward cities without RO treatment (Plantation: 293 mg/L; Pembroke Pines: ~280 mg/L).

Sunrise's remarkably soft water for Broward County reflects the city's reverse osmosis treatment — one of only a handful of Florida municipal systems using membrane treatment to reduce the Biscayne Aquifer's natural extreme hardness. The RO process removes virtually all dissolved calcium and magnesium from the membrane-treated fraction, and when blended with a portion of conventionally treated Biscayne water, produces the 79.5 mg/L finished hardness — orders of magnitude less than the untreated aquifer source. Sunrise invested in RO infrastructure to address the Biscayne Aquifer's high saltwater intrusion risk (the aquifer in west Broward is monitored for brackish intrusion), and this infrastructure also yields the benefit of dramatically reduced hardness.

With hardness at 79.5 mg/L, Sunrise residents enjoy notably softer water than other Broward County cities — minimal scale challenges, soap lathers well, and appliances experience far less scale than neighboring communities. City of Sunrise Utilities consistently delivers water meeting all Florida DEP and EPA Safe Drinking Water Act requirements.