Ankeny does not run its own treatment plant, but it does have one thing almost no other metro city has. Here is where the water actually comes from, what the latest testing found, and what an under-sink system changes.
Plenty of Ankeny homeowners assume a city this size must have its own wells and its own plant. Half of that is true, and the half that is true is more interesting than most people expect.
Ankeny's water utility (public water supply ID 7709053, serving roughly 76,200 people) owns no treatment plant. The Iowa DNR classifies its source water type as "Purchased Surface Water." Ankeny buys finished, already-treated water from Central Iowa Water Works, the regional production authority established in 2024, with Des Moines Water Works operating the three treatment plants under contract. Ankeny is one of CIWW's twelve founding members. So the water arriving at an Ankeny kitchen tap started out in the Raccoon and Des Moines Rivers, the same two rivers that supply the rest of the metro.
Treats up to 75 million gallons a day drawn from the Raccoon River, the Des Moines River, or the Water Works Park infiltration gallery.
Treats up to 25 million gallons a day from radial collector wells set in the sand and gravel beneath the Raccoon River.
Treats up to 10 million gallons a day from two radial collector wells along the Des Moines River, using ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis.
Ankeny operates three active aquifer storage and recovery wells that reach the Cambrian-Ordovician, or Jordan, aquifer. Ankeny #4 goes down 2,522 feet and was drilled back in 1961. Ankeny #6 reaches 2,530 feet and was drilled in 2008. Ankeny #7 reaches 2,485 feet and was drilled in 2022. This is where the sales pitch usually starts overstating things, so here is the accurate version: an ASR well is not a second, cleaner source of water. It takes drinking water that has already been treated, pushes it down into the deep aquifer for storage, and pulls it back out during peak summer demand, drought, or a flood event on the rivers. Recovered water is treated and tested again before it enters distribution. Ankeny therefore has a buffer that Clive, Johnston and Urbandale do not have. It does not have different source water.
Every number below comes from Ankeny's own distribution system row in the 2026 Drinking Water Quality Report, published jointly by Central Iowa Water Works and Des Moines Water Works, covering the 2025 data year.
µg/L average trihalomethanes in Ankeny's distribution system against a limit of 80, lower than Des Moines at 56, Clive at 60, Urbandale at 70 and Norwalk at 76.
2026 Water Quality Report ↗coliform-positive samples out of 70 taken across Ankeny in 2025. Ankeny's 2025 lead testing came back non-detect, with no measurable result anywhere in the sample range.
2026 Water Quality Report ↗mg/L peak nitrate in 2025 at the Fleur Drive plant feeding the Ankeny supply, against a federal limit of 10. McMullen peaked at 9.04 and Saylorville at 4.82.
2026 Water Quality Report ↗| Ankeny distribution system | Result | Range | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total trihalomethanes (TTHM) | 49 µg/L | 32 to 66 | 80 µg/L |
| Haloacetic acids (HAA5) | 7 µg/L | Non-detect to 10 | 60 µg/L |
| Chlorine (annual average) | 0.90 mg/L | 0.15 to 1.45 | 4 mg/L |
| Lead, 90th percentile (2025) | Non-detect | Non-detect | 15 µg/L action level |
| Total coliform bacteria | 0 positive | 70 samples taken | n/a |
| PFAS (EPA UCMR5 sampling) | Non-detect | n/a | EPA limits vary by compound |
Ankeny's water met every federal standard in 2025, and on several measures Ankeny is one of the better performers in the regional system. If you came to this page expecting us to tell you Ankeny tap water is dangerous, we are going to disappoint you.
The trihalomethane result is real good news. TTHMs form when chlorine reacts with organic matter in river water, so every CIWW city carries some, and it is the number most metro cities struggle with. Ankeny's annual average of 49 sits comfortably under the 80 limit and beats most of its neighbors. Haloacetic acids at 7 against a limit of 60 are barely present. Ankeny's lead result was non-detect with no measurable value in the reported range, which is a cleaner outcome than Urbandale and Des Moines, where individual sampled homes returned 44 and 21 µg/L.
Two caveats matter. First, lead is a plumbing problem, not a treatment plant problem. A citywide non-detect tells you Ankeny's utility is not sending lead down the main. It does not tell you what is in the solder, valves and fixtures under your own kitchen sink, because nobody sampled your house. That is exactly why the fix belongs at the tap rather than at the plant. Second, the report publishes no nitrate figure for Ankeny specifically. It reports nitrate at the three plants, and Fleur Drive peaked at 9.17 mg/L against a limit of 10 in 2025. Ankeny drinks that water.
Ankeny's water is disinfected with free chlorine, not chloramine. Chloramine shows up in some fringe metro systems such as Bondurant, Warren and Xenia, which is worth knowing because the two behave differently in a filter. Ankeny's chlorine residual ranged from 0.15 all the way to 1.45 mg/L across the year, so the taste of a glass of Ankeny tap water genuinely does change by month and by address.
The ASR wells buy Ankeny some room. They do not change the fact that Ankeny drinks from the same two rivers as everyone else in the metro.
The first Stage III ban in the region's history. All residential and commercial lawn watering stopped. Nitrate in the Raccoon River hit 14.39 mg/L and the Des Moines River 14.04 mg/L on the day it was issued. Ankeny was named in the order alongside every other CIWW member.
CIWW Stage III updates ↗It happened again, and Ankeny was named again. Central Iowa Water Works issued a second mandatory ban on June 8, stating the system was "operating at the limits of its available treatment resources." The Water Works Park infiltration gallery hit 12.3 mg/L and stayed above 10 for roughly 90 days, a record.
Iowa Public Radio, Jun 2026 ↗Those restrictions were not about running out of water. They were about protecting the utility's ability to strip nitrate out fast enough to stay under the legal limit. Cutting lawn watering lowers total demand so the nitrate removal system can keep pace. This is exactly the scenario Ankeny's ASR wells are built for, because recovered stored water takes some load off the plants during a peak. It is also why the ban applied to Ankeny anyway: three wells do not replace a metro's worth of July demand. Iowa has the second-highest cancer incidence rate in the country and the fastest growing, and researchers have connected long-term nitrate exposure in drinking water to several of those cancers. The tap water met the standard both summers. The margin is what changed. Investigate Midwest, Mar 2026 ↗
Ankeny's 2024 Special Census counted 76,207 residents, up from 67,887 at the 2020 Census. That is 8,320 more people in four years, a 12.25% increase, and it makes Ankeny the fifth-largest city in Iowa. It is the fastest-moving service area we cover, and the water system is scaling alongside it.
Census estimates for 2024 put Ankeny at roughly 31,300 housing units with a 71.3% homeownership rate and a median owner-occupied home value near $331,000. An under-sink RO system is a permanent improvement, so it makes the most sense when you are the one staying. Newer Ankeny kitchens almost always mean granite or quartz, which is why we drill natural stone in house instead of sending you to a countertop shop.
Prairie Trail on its own is a 1,031-acre master-planned development in central Ankeny with more than 200 acres of parks, 13 miles of trails, and a deliberate mix of single-family homes, brownstones, villas and multi-family buildings. Brownstones and villas come with their own under-sink space constraints, so we size the install to the cabinet you actually have rather than assuming a standard suburban vanity.
Reverse osmosis is the one household filter that meaningfully reduces nitrate. Pitchers and fridge filters do not.
We install the iSpring RCC7AK 7-stage system under your kitchen sink with its own dedicated faucet. Installation takes one to two hours. Pricing is $699, $849 or $1,099 fully installed depending on configuration, with no separate plumber charge.
Prime Flow Filtration does point-of-use drinking water only. We do not sell whole-house systems or softeners. And given how clean Ankeny's 2025 distribution numbers came back, we will tell you plainly if your situation does not call for anything. That happens here more than in most of the metro.
Free in-home water test, no obligation. We test your actual kitchen tap, show you the numbers, and tell you honestly whether a system is worth it.