Well Water Safety
Well Water Safety
If your water comes from a private well, you know that the safety of your drinking water is up to you. Most states have regulations related to private well construction and placement and a few states have regulations that quality of water from the private well water or require that the water is regularly checked. The CDC and EPA does recommend that you test your well water at least once a year. You may want to check the quality of your water more often if there are known problems with wells in your area or if you have experienced any flooding or land disturbances near your well. Indications of a change in water quality include cloudiness, odor, and unusual taste and if you interested we helped develop a Know Your H20 phone app and the Water Diagnostic Web App.
Another low cost option for tracking your water quality is the use of the TestAssured’s Well Water Testing Kit. This kit is a great screening test to help you determine the quality of your water by you running a screening test in your own home. This single kit includes all of the following water tests:
• Chlorine
• Copper
• Nitrates & Nitrites
• Iron
• Alkalinity
• pH
• Hardness
• Bacteria (total coliform)
Specially designed for people on well water, the Well Water Testing Kit includes 8 tests for a complete water analysis. You’ll be able to identify the presence of chemicals, metals, and even bacteria like E. coli. These easy to use tests will give you results within 10 minutes, with the exception of the bacteria test which takes 48 hours for full results. There’s no need for expensive equipment or to mail samples to a lab. Each test is calibrated to the EPA standards. Once you have your results, compare them to the EPA recommendations and guidelines for water quality limits.
If you are looking for well water testing, check out the NTL Program and Tap Score.
Recommended Reading:
Brain-Eating Amoeba (Naegleria Fowleri) Swimming in My Pond?
We were recently asked about “brain-eating amobeas” here is a summary of what we found:
- The brain-eating amoeba is actually known as Naegleria fowleri and it was discovered in 1965.
- It leaves in a cyst (egg-like stage) and a trophozoites (active stage).
- Size – Small – 8 to 15 um (micrometers) For the record, a penny has a width of 1500 micrometers.
- They do not like salt or saline water.
- They like warm stagnant freshwater, including pools and spas not properly treated.
- Organism enters the body through the NOSE !
- Infections are Rare and mostly in the southern states.
- Incubation Period – 2 to 15 days- average is 5 days
- Symptoms: headache, fever, stiff neck, loss of appetite, vomiting, mental confusion, seizures, and coma. I am sorry when coma is a symptom – WOW!!!!
Want to read more and get the details – We Suggest Web MD !!!! Source Information for this Summary!
We were asked about water testing – we could not find anything specific, but this would be two solid screening tests for surface water for this issue.
A. Total Microbiological Quality (E.Coli, Coliform bacteria, Legionella, Pseudomonas, Streptococcus, Clostridium, Heliobacter Pylori, Sphingomonas, Klebsiella, Staphylococcus and more)
Or
B. General Pond Water Screening with Bacteria
Hot New Concern in Drinking Water GenX and PFAS ! (Emerging drinking water contaminants)
Recomended Reading
Lycoming County Pennsylvania Flooding Private Wells
Lycoming County, Pennsylvania – Flooding Private Wells
With the significant and long-term rainfall events, we have areas that have undergone flooding. If your area has been flooded and you use private water wells you must take some action to ensure that your water well is thoroughly cleaned and sanitized. When water wells become inundated or a region floods, it is possible that the contaminated water may enter the water well directly via the well cap or indirectly through natural macropores (i.e., spaces between the rock or particles of sand and gravel, in the unconsolidated material or bedrock. OUR suggestions are as follows:
- Do not panic!
- If you are not handy, we recommend that you contact a licensed professional well driller.
- If you are handy and have power, we recommend that you inspect the area around the well and remove the well cap and shock disinfect the well.
- We would recommend the well be purged to waste – do not purge the water into the septic system or back directly into the well initially. When the well water appears clear, recirculate the water back into the well to wash down the sides of the casing. Please make sure to by-pass any water treatment devices and water filters and do not run this water through your main plumbing of the home.
- We then recommend that the well and main line be shock disinfected twice. This is our website that contains information on how to shock disinfect a well and a link to a video that reviews the process and to the preferred chemical to use (Link to Amazon). Please note- Some local well drillers has this chemical available. If you can not get this chemical, it is ok in an emergency to use household bleach that does NOT contains scents, fragrances, or other additives.
- After the well has been shock disinfected and purged one to waste, the second shock disinfection should be to the well and the distribution system of the home. When you conduct this disinfection, it is critical that you remove all aeration devices, by-pass all filters, and remove any hoses or connections that have inline filters or screens, i.e., your washer hoses and you may want to consider raising the casing, adding a sanitary well cap, and adding a Well Seal.
- When you believe you have shock disinfected the well properly, we recommend the following:
- Screen the raw untreated well water and the water from the piping of your home using a DIY Informational Water Testing Screening Test. (Link to TA – portion of the proceeds benefits the Keystone Clean Water Team)
- If the screening test is negative, we would suggest that you then contact a certified laboratory PA by county and have the water tested for at least total coliform and E. coli. using a method that gives you a physical count, i.e., an enumeration method.
- If the water is still positive for total coliform and/or E. coli, we would recommend that you shock disinfect the well and distribution system a second time, but use a longer reaction time and then retest using a certified laboratory.
- If you are in an area with farming or petrochemical storage or high use, we would also recommend an informational water screening test that includes trace metals, herbicides, pesticides, and volatile organic compounds (Link to NTL – portion of the proceeds benefits the Keystone Clean Water Team).
PS: Adding too much disinfection chemical to the well is not wise, this can cause the release of arsenic and other trace metals into the water.
Recent Concerns:
Worms in Well Water
Forever Chemicals in Drinking Water
The Keystone Clean Water Team is a 501 c3 that focuses on Pennsylvania, but helps private well owners and small water systems worldwide.
For more information about us, please visit our portal. We have a new educational booklet on groundwater in Pennsylvania. More Questions -visit us at Water-research.net
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Bacterial contamination in private water wells send thousands of people hurling to the ER
“It may not have been bad shrimp or dirty lettuce that kept you up all night. A recent study shows that in North Carolina, microbes in drinking water from private wells are responsible for estimated 29,200 emergency room visits for acute GI illnesses each year. That number accounts for nearly all visits of that type and cause.
This is a particularly serious problem in North Carolina, where more than a third of all residents — 3.3 million — rely on private wells for their drinking water. These wells, which can source their water from beneath the ground, a spring or a river, are largely unregulated.
(This is why contaminants from coal ash, such as arsenic, lead and chromium 6, which have even more harmful long-term health effects, are of such concern — and why widespread testing is necessary.)
An article in this month’s Environmental Health Perspectives — among its co-authors is Jacqueline MacDonald Gibson of UNC’s Gillings School of Global Public Health — concludes that people on private wells are more likely to get sick from their water than those on community systems, such as municipal utilities.
enviro-health-perspectives-drinking-water
From the Study
The presence of total coliforms in groundwater indicates that microorganisms from surface water have been able to reach the aquifer and a more rigorous monitoring should begin for other microorganisms (pathogenic) which might also reach the aquifer. When fecal indicators are detected, anything can happen, and will happen, with potential serious public health implications.”
To learn or read more – Go to Article
More importantly to Act Now and Get Your Water Tested.
Monitoring your homes health and the Neighboorhood Hazard Reports.
Swimmers in state parks beware of E. coli
E.coli, found in the gastrointestinal tract, can come from sewage, animal waste, water run-off after rainfall, and swimmers, said Dan Miller II, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Health.
Parks test three samples from their lakes twice a week and recreational areas will close swimming areas when 235 colonies or higher are found per 1,000 milliliters of water. At that level, swimmers have an increased risk of getting sick, said Miller.
“By the time you get the results, the damage is already done. People have been swimming in the water for awhile,” said Jeffrey Butia, chief of the public drinking water and waste management program of the Allegheny County Health Department.
A person can catch a recreational water illness from swallowing the water, breathing it in, or having contact with contaminated water. Problems can include gastrointestinal, skin, ear, respiratory, eye, neurological and wound infections. The most commonly reported sickness is diarrhea.
More than swimmers are affected by contaminated water. Fishermen should practice good personal hygiene and wash their hands before handling or preparing food or after handling fish to prevent illness.
Due to the multiple causes of gastrointestinal illness, many cases of E. coli contamination go undetected, Miller said. Young children are highly sensitive, as well as people who have open cuts, weakened immune systems, the elderly, and people with HIV and organ transplants, said Carl Batt, a professor of food science at Cornell University.
Unlike other states, Pennsylvania only tests for fecal coliform and not for other potentially toxic bacteria.