Concord and Kannapolis tap water: what the 2025 reports actually say

Where the water comes from

Concord draws surface water from Lake Don T. Howell in western Cabarrus County and from Lake Fisher, treated at the Coddle Creek and Hillgrove plants. Its report also lists water purchased from the City of Albemarle.^[source]

Kannapolis draws primarily from Kannapolis Lake, with supplemental raw water from Lake Don T. Howell and Second Creek. It buys about 0.3 million gallons a day from Concord for the Shiloh Church Road area.^[source] The connection runs both ways: Concord's report notes that some customers in Concord's service area get their water directly from Kannapolis and are covered by the Kannapolis report instead.^[source] So Lake Don T. Howell feeds both systems, and water moves between them in both directions.

Disinfectant: free chlorine in both cities

Both 2025 reports list chlorine in their disinfectant residual tables, and neither mentions chloramine. Concord's running annual average was 1.06 ppm; Kannapolis's was 1.02 ppm. The federal limit for chlorine residual is 4.0 ppm.^{[source][source]}

If you notice a chlorine taste or smell, that residual is why. It's there on purpose, to keep water safe through the pipes, and it's well within limits. Taste is a preference issue; our chlorine taste and odor guide covers the options, including doing nothing.

Lead and disinfection byproducts

Trihalomethanes (TTHM) and haloacetic acids (HAA5) form when chlorine reacts with natural organic matter in lake water. Compliance is judged on a running annual average at each sampling site, not on any single sample. That's why Concord's report can show individual TTHM samples as high as 89.0 ppb while its compliance value is 62.8 ppb and its violation column reads "N."^[source] Concord's HAA5 compliance value was 47.7 ppb against a 60 ppb limit.^[source]

Lead in city water almost always comes from a home's own plumbing, such as older solder or fixtures, rather than the utility.^[source] A low citywide 90th percentile tells you about the system, not your faucet. If your home is older, a home lead test is the way to know.

PFAS: reported, but not ready to publish

Both cities reported PFAS sampling results in their 2025 reports. We're not repeating the numbers here, and the reason matters: in Concord's report, the PFAS rows are printed in micrograms per liter, a unit that would imply levels far beyond anything plausible for treated lake water. In Kannapolis's report, the PFAS rows say parts per billion while the column header says parts per trillion.^{[source][source]} A unit error changes a number by a factor of a thousand, so we're waiting until each city confirms its units in writing.

For context, EPA's enforceable limits for PFOA and PFOS are 4.0 parts per trillion; other proposed PFAS limits are under review.^[source] If PFAS is the reason you're reading this, the useful steps don't depend on our numbers: call your city and ask for the confirmed values, and if you decide to treat your drinking water, look for a point-of-use system whose certification listing names PFOA and PFOS specifically. Our PFAS filtration page and PFAS in Charlotte-area tap water explain how.

Hardness: not in either report

Neither Concord's nor Kannapolis's 2025 report lists hardness.^{[source][source]} Reservoir water in this part of the Piedmont is often soft, but we won't assume it for your city without a number. If you're seeing scale and wondering about a softener, a simple hardness test answers it; start with our softener check.

Violations

Kannapolis's report states that no violations occurred during the report year.^[source] Concord's report doesn't include a standalone statement, but every violation column in its detected-contaminant tables reads "N."^[source]

If you're on a well in Cabarrus County

Not everyone around Concord and Kannapolis is on city water. Among private wells tested through the state lab in Cabarrus County, 36.38% of 1,399 were above 300 µg/L for manganese and 3.18% of 1,382 were above the 10 µg/L arsenic standard.^[source] Those numbers describe wells that were tested, not every well, but they're a good reason to test yours. See Cabarrus County water and iron and manganese in well water.