Water Treatment
Services in
Sunrise, FL

For regulatory purposes every address is mapped to one plant, and most of Sunrise itself falls inside the Springtree boundary; the Sawgrass area mainly covers Weston, Bonaventure and the west side of Davie. The City's service area map points out that the systems are connected, so water from more than one plant can reach the same street. Each area gets its own annual water quality report on the City's website. Billing and account questions go to customer service at 954-746-3232, and the Utilities Department's main line is 954-888-6000.

The difference between the plants comes down to treatment. Lime softening is built to drop calcium out of the water, and it does little to PFAS; nanofiltration membranes hold most PFAS back, which fits the clean Sawgrass results. The small Southwest lime plant tells the same story, with PFOA at 9.3 ppt in 2023 and 12.3 ppt in December 2024. The membrane unit the City is adding at Springtree is described in its 2026 bid as a second train for the existing RO system; the bid doesn't say what share of the plant's flow it will treat.

Until the limits apply, a Springtree-area home can deal with it at the kitchen sink. Our reverse osmosis system under the kitchen sink has five stages, is NSF/ANSI certified and is designed to remove PFAS, along with chlorate, chromium-6 and lead, from the water you drink and cook with. Showers and laundry don't need it. If the free test or your address puts you on Sawgrass water, we'll tell you RO is optional.

It's partly softened at the plant, and how much depends on where it was treated. Untreated Biscayne water around here is very hard: the City's own engineers reported 265 mg/L at the Sawgrass wellfields in 2019, about 15.5 grains per gallon. Springtree's lime process takes out a large share of the calcium. Sawgrass membranes take out more, and then the City adds some minerals back on purpose, because water that's too soft is harder on pipes. Neither report prints a finished hardness figure, and blending means two homes a mile apart can read differently.

So we test before quoting. If the reading is high enough to leave crust on the shower glass and scale in the water heater, a softener sized from that number, usually 48,000 to 64,000 grains for a family home, solves it. If it's low, a softener only adds a salt bill, and we'll say so. Where you do add one, carbon in front of it keeps chloramine from wearing out the resin. Our water softener installation page covers the valves and tank sizes we use.

Most of the year the City disinfects with chloramine, chlorine bound to ammonia, which lasts longer in roughly 600 miles of mains and gives the water its faint pool smell. Once a year the Utilities Department switches to free chlorine for about four weeks to clean out the system. In 2026 that ran from April 27 to May 25; in 2025 it was April 28 to May 26, and in 2024 April 22 to May 20. During the switch the water can taste and smell sharper. The City notifies dialysis centers and hospitals, and aquarium owners should use a dechlorinator rated for both chlorine and chloramine. The notice applies to everyone billed by the City of Sunrise, including customers in Davie, Weston and Southwest Ranches.

Trihalomethanes and haloacetic acids form as disinfectant reacts with natural organic matter in the water, and they keep forming the longer water sits in the pipes. Springtree's one exceedance, in late 2020, was for trihalomethanes. Catalytic carbon where the main line enters the house reduces chloramine, the spring chlorine and much of the byproduct load at every faucet and shower; standard carbon in a pitcher does little for chloramine. The tank sizes and media are on our whole-house water filtration page.

Chlorate comes from chlorine-based disinfectants, and both large plants carried a lot of it in 2014: every one of the eight samples was above EPA's 210 ppb screening level, with the highest, 918 ppb, at Springtree in November. That's the latest public data, and there is still no federal limit to compare it with. Chromium-6 was present at low levels, 0.15 to 0.18 ppb at Springtree. It has no federal limit either; California's state limit is 10 ppb, and EWG's much stricter guideline is 0.02 ppb.

Neither result means the water is unsafe under current law. If you'd like less of both in what you drink, the same kitchen RO that handles PFAS covers them, so one system answers all three questions.

Most of the housing is older than the solder ban. The city started in 1961 as Sunrise Golf Village, a developer's community of fewer than 350 people, and grew from 7,403 residents in 1970 to 39,681 in 1980 and 64,407 in 1990, U.S. Census figures show. Lead solder was banned in drinking water plumbing in 1986, so a large share of Sunrise homes, from the original golf village streets to the first Springtree and Welleby subdivisions, were plumbed before that. Low utility-wide results don't rule out a high reading at one kitchen faucet.

The free lab test settles it. We collect the first water drawn after the tap sits overnight and send it to a certified lab at no charge. A high result is handled at that faucet with RO or a filter certified for lead.

Condos and 55-plus communities. Sunrise Lakes, the 55-plus condo community off Pine Island Road, went up in phases from the early 1970s, and the city has many other condo and townhouse complexes. A whole-unit system needs access to a main line that feeds only your unit, plus association approval. An under-sink RO system stays inside your cabinet and avoids both.

The free water test takes about 20 minutes at your sink. We read hardness in grains per gallon, chloramine, total dissolved solids, pH and iron, then go over the results next to the plant data for your service area. The lab lead test is added for older homes at no cost.

Most installs happen the same day: two to four hours for a single tank, four to six for a three-stage system. The warranty runs 5 years on the control valve and 10 on the tank. After that, the same local crew handles filter and membrane changes and, if you have a softener, salt delivery to your door. Calls come to our own office.