Clive has no wells of its own and no treatment plant. Here is where your water actually comes from, what the latest testing found, and what an under-sink system changes.
Clive Water Department sells water. It does not make any.
The Clive Water Department is run out of City of Clive Public Works, with a superintendent of record and a system address on NW 111th Street. What it does not have is a source. The Iowa DNR classifies Clive's source water type as "Purchased Surface Water", and Clive's well record on the state's Source Water Protection Tracker reads "No Well Information Found." Every drop that reaches a Clive kitchen was treated somewhere else and piped in. Clive is one of the twelve founding members of Central Iowa Water Works, the regional production authority established in 2024, with Des Moines Water Works operating the treatment plants under contract.
Treats up to 25 million gallons a day drawn from six radial collector wells and one horizontal well set in the coarse sand and gravel beneath the Raccoon River. The CCR names Clive directly among the systems this plant serves, alongside southern Des Moines, Waukee, Urbandale and West Des Moines.
A radial collector well is a shaft sunk into riverbed gravel with arms that pull water sideways out of the alluvium. Legally it is a well. Hydraulically it is the Raccoon River after a gravel pre-filter. Maffitt Reservoir and Crystal Lake are available for blending when the plant needs them.
So the honest description of Clive tap water is treated river water, not deep protected groundwater. The Iowa DNR Source Water Assessment rates the Raccoon River, the Des Moines River, Maffitt Reservoir and Crystal Lake all at "High" susceptibility to surface contamination, and calls the alluvial aquifer feeding those collector wells highly susceptible.
Every number below comes from the 2026 Drinking Water Quality Report covering the 2025 data year, published jointly by Central Iowa Water Works and Des Moines Water Works. Clive has its own row in that report.
mg/L peak nitrate in finished water at the Fleur Drive plant in 2025, against a federal limit of 10. The L.D. McMullen plant, which serves parts of Clive, peaked at 9.04.
2026 Water Quality Report ↗µg/L highest single trihalomethane sample taken in Clive's distribution system. The annual average was 60, against a limit of 80.
2026 Water Quality Report ↗monthly distribution samples in Clive came back positive for total coliform bacteria in 2025. A clean sweep.
2026 Water Quality Report ↗| Clive distribution system, 2025 | Result | Range | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total trihalomethanes (TTHM) | 60 µg/L | 46 to 77 | 80 µg/L |
| Haloacetic acids (HAA5) | 10 µg/L | 7 to 11 | 60 µg/L |
| Chlorine (annual average) | 0.90 mg/L | 0.38 to 1.37 | 4 mg/L |
| Lead, 90th percentile (2025) | Non-detect | ND to 5 µg/L | 15 µg/L action level |
| Total coliform bacteria | 0 positives | 20 samples per month | No more than 1 positive |
Clive's water met every federal standard in 2025, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. If you are here expecting us to tell you Clive has a hidden contamination problem, it does not have one, and nobody selling you a filter should say it does.
Clive's numbers are genuinely mid-pack for the metro. Its 60 µg/L trihalomethane average sits below Urbandale at 70 and well below Norwalk at 76, and above Ankeny at 49 and Johnston at 36. Its 10 µg/L haloacetic acid average is one of the lower ones in the system, nowhere near Johnston's 24 or Bondurant's 25. Trihalomethanes form when chlorine reacts with organic matter, so their presence is simply what it looks like to drink treated river water instead of groundwater. That is a Clive fact only because Clive buys surface water, not because anything is wrong in Clive.
Lead is the same story told at the household scale. Clive's 90th-percentile result was non-detect, so there is no system-wide lead issue, but the sample range ran from non-detect up to 5 µg/L. Lead does not travel from the plant. It comes out of the solder, the service line and the fixtures inside one specific house. That is why the fix belongs at your tap and not at a treatment plant twelve miles away.
One practical note: Clive is disinfected with free chlorine, not chloramine. Chloramine shows up only in some fringe systems around the metro such as Bondurant, Warren and Xenia Rural Water. The two behave differently inside a filter, so it is worth knowing which one you actually have.
The real Clive-specific story is not a contaminant. It is how little margin is left between the source water and the legal limit.
The first Stage III ban in the region's history. All residential and commercial lawn watering stopped, and Clive was one of the member cities named in the order. Nitrate in the Raccoon River hit 14.39 mg/L and the Des Moines River 14.04 mg/L the day it was issued. Finished water at McMullen was 8.09 mg/L and at Fleur Drive 7.6 mg/L.
CIWW Stage III updates ↗It happened again, and Clive was named again. Central Iowa Water Works issued a second mandatory ban on June 8, 2026, stating that 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. Restrictions eased back to Stage II for all customers on July 20, 2026.
Iowa Public Radio, Jun 2026 ↗Clive is served by Central Iowa Water Works, whose plants finished 2025 with peak nitrate of 9.17 mg/L at Fleur Drive and 9.04 mg/L at McMullen, against a 10 mg/L limit. That is a margin of well under a milligram. The utility has never exceeded the standard since nitrate removal went in during 1992, and the water leaving the plant is legal water. But those lawn-watering bans were not about running out of water. They were about cutting demand so the nitrate removal system could keep pace. Iowa has the second-highest cancer incidence rate in the country, and researchers have connected long-term nitrate exposure in drinking water to several cancers. The tap water met the standard both summers. What changed is how close it is running.
Clive went from 15,447 residents in 2010 to 18,601 at the 2020 Census, a 20.4% decade gain, and the Census Bureau's 2024 estimate puts it near 19,508. That is another 4.8% in four years. Growth like that is why a city of roughly 19,000 people is a founding member of a regional water authority instead of drilling its own wells.
The 2020 Census counted 7,270 housing units in Clive, up from 6,077 in 2010. Clive was platted in 1882 as a coal and rail shipping point but did not incorporate until August 18, 1956, so the housing stock skews postwar suburban and newer. Newer Clive kitchens almost always mean granite or quartz, which is why we drill natural stone in house rather than sending you to a countertop shop.
73.8% of Clive households own their home, per the 2019 to 2023 American Community Survey. That matters practically. An under-sink RO system is a permanent improvement to the house, and it makes the most sense when you are the person still drinking from that tap in ten years.
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, softeners or well treatment, and if a free test says your Clive tap does not call for anything, we will tell you that instead of selling you something.
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.