Your water, year by year

Every summer the City of Bellaire publishes a Drinking Water Quality Report, the document federal law calls a Consumer Confidence Report, and most households file it unread. Read six of them in a row and they tell a plain story: water that has consistently tested within its limits, a system that sometimes missed its paperwork deadlines, and a city now planning the most expensive piece of infrastructure in its history, which is a new way to deal with what goes down the drain.

Where the water comes from

Bellaire buys and pumps. In the 2025 report, 52 percent of the water came as surface water from the City of Houston's East Water Purification Plants 1 and 2 and the Southwest Repump, and 48 percent was groundwater pumped from the Evangeline Aquifer in Harris County. The city's own water production page lists three underground wells in operation today; older documents show four. The city describes its objective as an even split between the two sources, and the delivered mix in a given year lands near it. Because half the supply comes from Houston, a problem at a Houston plant can reach Bellaire taps, which is exactly what happened in November 2022.

The 2025 report calls both the Bellaire system and its Houston source water Superior and says the water meets or exceeds federal drinking-water requirements.

The numbers, six reports in a row

The regulated results the reports publish each year are disinfection byproducts, the disinfectant itself, and lead and copper measured at household taps. All of them stayed below their limits in every year on record here.

- Disinfection byproducts. Total trihalomethanes ran 28 parts per billion in 2021, 30 in 2022, 31 in 2023, 40 in 2024 and 40 in 2025, against a federal limit of 80. Haloacetic acids ran 25, 32, 21, 34 and 33 parts per billion over the same years, against a limit of 60. Both rose in 2024 and held in 2025, still well under the line. - Disinfectant. The chloramine or chlorine level averaged 1.58 parts per million in 2020 and 2022, 1.86 in 2023, 3.3 in 2024 and 2.74 in 2025, against a maximum of 4. - Lead. The 90th-percentile lead reading at tested taps was 0.5 parts per billion in 2021, 5.9 in 2024 and 1.2 in 2025, against an action level of 15. The highest single tap in 2025 measured 9.3. - Copper. The 90th-percentile copper reading was 0.159 parts per million in 2021, 0.288 in 2024 and 0.15 in 2025, against an action level of 1.3.

Those 90th-percentile numbers are what the rules measure: nine in ten tested homes came in at or below the figure. Your own tap depends on your own pipes, which is why the city's newer service-line inventory matters.

The record, including the parts that aren't flattering

The reports also list what went wrong, and a fair account includes it.

Because half the supply comes from Houston, a problem at a Houston plant can reach Bellaire taps, which is exactly what happened in November 2022.

- 2022. The city reported that its chlorine sampling met state requirements but that a required disinfectant report was not submitted on time for July through September. On November 27, 2022, the city issued a boil-water notice after a power failure and pressure loss at Houston's East Water Purification Plant, and rescinded it the next day. - 2024. The report lists a failure to test or report the disinfectant level for October through December, and a lead and copper notice issue: results of lead tap-water monitoring were not given to the tested households within 30 days. - 2025. The report lists a reporting violation from December 30, 2024 to February 4, 2025, when the state certificate showing those lead results were delivered was not filed on time; the city says it changed its internal process. The same year, E. coli was found, which triggered a Level 2 assessment. The assessment found two cross-connections near homes, places where a private line could let water flow back toward the public system. They were isolated and brought to code, and follow-up testing showed no contamination.

None of these is a reading over a health limit. Several are paperwork, one is a Houston plant failure, and one is a contamination finding that was traced and fixed. Together they explain why we never describe Bellaire's water record as clean, even though the water has tested within its limits.

Pipes, plants and the bond

The 2025 report says the city has built an inventory of service-line materials, the pipe running from the main to each house, with public access through Public Works. If your line is listed as galvanized or unknown, a licensed plumber can tell you what is on your side of the meter.

Underground, the larger story is wastewater. Voters authorized $30 million in bonds under Proposition B on November 5, 2024, for water and wastewater improvements. A 2025 technical memo priced the main options for the city's aging treatment plant: about $105.4 million to replace the existing plant, about $130.1 million for a new plant on the Public Works site, and about $4.77 million for a force main to send flow to a Houston plant, plus about $2.07 million for a replacement Bellaire lift station needed under every option. In May 2025 the city also reported a $5.14 million Houston wastewater impact-fee credit as part of a land and utility agreement. These are planning estimates and authorizations, not money spent.

The places that handle it are close together. Bellaire City Utility Billing is at 7008 S Rice Ave, and the city lists the Public Works department's contact address as 5808 S. Rice Avenue. Local plumbers such as Perot Plumbing, at 5010 Tamarisk St, Bellaire Plumbing, at 5311 Bellaire Blvd, and Southern Plumbing, at 5233 Bellaire Blvd, can check a service line or a backflow device. The Bellaire City Library, at 5111 Jessamine St, keeps public computers for anyone who wants to read the full reports.

Before you go

- Read the newest Drinking Water Quality Report each summer, because it is the only place the city lists both the results and the violations together. - Ask Public Works what the service-line inventory shows for your address before you buy an older house. - Have a backflow device on irrigation and pool lines tested on schedule, because cross-connections are what the 2025 assessment found. - Keep a few days of bottled water in hurricane season, since half the supply depends on Houston plants staying powered. - Treat the bond and plant figures as estimates until the city awards a contract.

Sources

- City of Bellaire, Drinking Water Quality Reports: 2021 (https://www.bellairetx.gov/DocumentCenter/View/29820/Bellaire-CCR-2021), 2022 (https://www.bellairetx.gov/DocumentCenter/View/31002/Bellaire-CCR-2022), 2023 (https://bellairetx.gov/1924/2023-Drinking-Water-Quality-Report), 2024 (https://www.bellairetx.gov/DocumentCenter/View/34134/Bellaire-Water-Quality-Report---CCR-2024-PDF), 2025 (https://www.bellairetx.gov/DocumentCenter/View/35516/Bellaire-Water-Quality-Report-CCR-2025-PDF) - City of Bellaire, Boil Water Notice, November 27, 2022 (https://www.bellairetx.gov/List.aspx?MID=6055), and rescission, November 28, 2022 (https://www.bellairetx.gov/List.aspx?MID=6057) - City of Bellaire, Water Production (https://www.bellairetx.gov/636/Water-Production) - City of Bellaire, 2024 Bond (https://www.bellairetx.gov/1923/2024-Bond) - City of Bellaire, Technical Memorandum, Cost Estimate Refinement, WWTP and Lift Station, March 14, 2025 (https://www.bellairetx.gov/DocumentCenter/View/33762/2025-03-14-Cost-Estimate-Refinement-Treatment-Plant-and-Lift-Stations---FINAL) - City of Bellaire, Water/Wastewater Projects (https://bellairetx.gov/1938/WaterWastewater-Projects) - City of Bellaire, Public Works (https://www.bellairetx.gov/630/Public-Works)

En español

El agua de Bellaire es una mezcla: en el informe de 2025, 52 por ciento llegó como agua superficial de las plantas East de la Ciudad de Houston y 48 por ciento salió de tres pozos de la ciudad en el acuífero Evangeline. Entre 2020 y 2025, todos los resultados regulados del informe anual quedaron por debajo de su límite federal, incluido el plomo, que en 2025 marcó 1.2 partes por mil millones en el percentil 90, frente a un nivel de acción de 15. El historial no es perfecto: hubo reportes tardíos en 2022 y 2024, un aviso de hervir el agua en noviembre de 2022 por una falla en una planta de Houston, y en 2025 se encontró E. coli; la ciudad localizó dos conexiones cruzadas cerca de casas y las corrigió. Lea el informe cada verano.