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Kansas City, MO

Is Kansas City tap water safe to drink?

KANSAS CITY PWS supplies 553,295 people here, drawing surface water. Here is its entire federal compliance record — and, just as importantly, what that record cannot tell you.

Kitchen tap running — Kansas City municipal drinking water

People served

553,295

KANSAS CITY PWS

Source

surface water

SW

Violations on record

4

all time

Health-based

1

see below

What this page is, and what it is not

This is the federal compliance record — what EPA has cited this utility for. It is not a water quality test. A system with no violations has not been shown to be clean; it has nothing reported, which is a weaker claim than it looks. The actual measured contaminant levels are in the utility’s annual Consumer Confidence Report, which every US utility must publish and which is not in this dataset.

Health-based citations

What KANSAS CITY PWS has been cited for

EPA contaminant code 0800

1 citation · 2019
The full record

Every violation, most recent first

FromContaminantWhat happenedHealth-based
2025-12-30EPA contaminant code 5000missed monitoring or reportingno
2025-10-01EPA contaminant code 5000missed monitoring or reportingno
2025-07-01EPA contaminant code 5000missed monitoring or reportingno
2019-03-01EPA contaminant code 0800failed a required treatment techniqueyes
What it means for filter choice

This system has no violations on its federal record. That is not the same as clean water, and we will not pretend it is — it means nothing has been reported. It does mean there is no recorded reason here to spend money on filtration. Test your own tap first.

Test before you spend

Fourteen dollars beats a compliance record

A federal record describes a utility. It cannot describe the pipe between the main and your kitchen, which is where lead usually comes from. Your own tap is the only thing that answers your own question.

HoneForest TDS meter

HoneForest TDS meter

$13.97

4.5 16,400 reviews · 2,000+ bought last month

Tells you your dissolved-solids number in about four seconds, which is where every decision on this site should start.

Against it: TDS is not a safety measurement. It counts dissolved solids and cannot see lead, PFAS or bacteria. It tells you how hard your water is and whether a filter is still doing anything — nothing more. Anyone selling you a system on a TDS reading alone is misleading you.

Check price on Amazonchecked
2026-08-31
HM Digital TDS-3

HM Digital TDS-3

$13.60

4.6 1,800 reviews · 1,000+ bought last month

The one that has been in service vans for fifteen years. Holds calibration better than the cheap ones.

Against it: Same limitation as every TDS meter, and it looks like it was designed in 2009 because it was.

Check price on Amazonchecked
2026-08-31

Source: US EPA Safe Drinking Water Information System, retrieved 2026-08-31 from data.epa.gov. Public water system MO1010415. Nothing on this page is written by hand — if a figure is not in EPA’s response, it does not appear here. All cities.