Penn State Master Well Owner volunteer training opportunities in 2012
Penn State Extension will be offering several training workshops for new Master Well Owner Volunteers in 2012. The six week online course will begin on February 6, 2012. Two Saturday training workshops will also be offered this spring in McKean and Butler Counties. More details on these training workshops, including a link to the online application, are provided below.
Upcoming Training Opportunities for New Master Well Owner Volunteers Pennsylvania is home to over one million private water wells and springs but it is one of the few states that do not provide statewide regulations to protect these rural drinking water supplies. In 2004, Penn State Cooperative Extension and several partner agencies created the Master Well Owner Network (MWON), a group of trained volunteers who are dedicated to promoting the proper construction, testing, and maintenance of private water wells, springs and cisterns throughout Pennsylvania. Since its inception, hundreds of MWON volunteers have been trained in 64 counties throughout Pennsylvania. These volunteers have, in turn, educated tens of thousands of private water system owners across the state.
In 2012, persons interested in becoming a trained Master Well Owner volunteer will have three opportunities.
1) Online MWON volunteer training will occur between February 6, 2012 and March 19, 2012. Volunteers in the online training receive weekly emails containing links to relevant reading in the MWON handbook (A Guide to Private Water Systems in Pennsylvania), a 45-minute video presentation for each chapter, and a short online exam. Participants in online training will largely be able to determine their own training schedule. Volunteers with questions can attend one optional live online meeting at the end of the course. Participants must score a cumulative 70% on all of the online exams to be certified as a MWON volunteer.
2) A standard, Saturday MWON volunteer training workshop will be offered in Butler County (location TBA) on March 24, 2012 from 9 AM until 3:30 PM. Participants will hear presentations from Penn State water specialists, well drillers and other experts. As with the online course, volunteers at the Saturday workshops must score at least 70% on a final exam to be certified.
3) Another standard, Saturday MWON volunteer training workshop will be offered in Smethport, PA (McKean County) on April 21, 2012 from 9 AM to 3:30 PM.
Volunteers who successfully complete any of these training courses and pass the exam(s) will receive a free copy of the 80 page publication – A Guide to Private Water Systems in Pennsylvania, a coupon good for a 10% discount on water testing through the Penn State water testing lab, and access to various MWON educational materials. In return, MWON volunteers are asked to pass along what they have learned to other private water supply owners and submit an annual report of their educational accomplishments.
Prospective volunteers need to submit an application and be accepted into the program. Applications for the online course will only be accepted through January 31, 2012. Applications for the Saturday workshops will be accepted up to one week before the workshop. To be eligible for any MWON training, applicants must not be affiliated with any business that works directly with private water system owners such as employees of water well drilling companies, water testing laboratories or water treatment businesses.
To learn more and the Master Well Owner Network, visit
http://extension.psu.edu/water/mwon
To complete an application to participate in one of the MWON volunteer trainings listed above, visit
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/mwon_application
Note From Carbon County Groundwater Guardians – Consider coming back and helping our efforts – Looking for Volunteers Statewide.
For your information, we wanted to point out a few other resources
1. Mail Order Water Testing Kits or consider using a local water testing laboratory. The mail order testing is done by a Nationally Certified Laboratory and a portion of the proceeds that help support this organization.
2. New Education Guide for Private Well Owners in PA – What do the numbers mean and Insights into Baseline Water Testing? (Proceeds Benefit this Organization- free online read only version)
3. Our Online FREE Library of Pdf, videos, powerpoint presenations for private well owners.
4. Our New Flier
Penn State water-well expert testifies before state House committee
live.psu.edu/story/57083
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Bryan Swistock, senior water resources extension associate at Penn State, testified before the House Consumer Affairs Committee on problems with Pennsylvania water wells.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A Penn State Extension water specialist told a House committee on Jan. 10 that research has shown that about 40 percent of all water wells in the state fail to meet at least one safe-drinking-water standard.
Bryan Swistock, senior water resources extension associate at Penn State, testified before the House Consumer Affairs Committee in a hearing on House Bill 1855, which would create standards for water-well construction. Pennsylvania is currently one of just a few states that do not have statewide requirements for the construction of private water wells.
“While proper well construction does not completely eliminate water-quality problems, it clearly plays a role in preventing surface contaminants from getting into wells,” he said. “Our research has shown that inadequate water-well construction is a contributing factor to the failure of some private wells to meet safe-drinking-water standards.”
Swistock noted that for the past 23 years he has conducted both research and outreach programs offered by Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences related to private water wells in Pennsylvania.
“We recognize that private water wells are a critical part of the water infrastructure in Pennsylvania, providing drinking water to millions of residents in rural homes, farms and businesses,” he testified.
“In the absence of both regulatory protections and unbiased assistance, Penn State has devoted considerable research and extension efforts to meet the demands of private well owners interested in properly constructing and managing their drinking water supply.”
Over the past three decades, Swistock pointed out, the university has conducted numerous research projects on various aspects of water quality that have included thousands of private water wells.
“Our research has consistently found that approximately 40 percent of private water wells in Pennsylvania fail to meet at least one safe-drinking-water standard,” he said. “The most frequently detected pollutant with a potential health effect is coliform bacteria, which occurred in about one third of the water wells tested in our research.
“The presence of these bacteria indicates the potential for disease-causing bacteria to occur in drinking water. E. coli bacteria, which originate from either animal or human wastes and thus represent a more serious health risk, were found in 14 percent of the water wells in our recent study.”
While these bacteria can be related to various land uses near water wells, they also can occur from surface water, insects or small mammals entering poorly constructed wells, Swistock explained. This surface contamination often can be prevented by extending a properly sized well casing above the ground surface, installing a cement-like grout seal around the casing, and fitting the top of the casing with a vermin-proof or “sanitary” well cap.
According to Swistock, recent Penn State research found that many water wells lack at least one of these water well features. “More importantly, this same research showed a statistical correlation between water-well construction and the occurrence of both coliform bacteria and E. coli bacteria in the well water,” he said.
“Bacterial contamination rates in water wells with sanitary construction were about half of the rates found in water wells that lacked any sanitary construction components.”
An earlier, small-scale Penn State study found that some bacterial contamination in water wells could be removed simply by having a water-well professional disinfect the well and replace loosely fitted well caps with a sealed, sanitary well cap.
Unfortunately, many rural residents are unaware of water-quality problems, Swistock told the committee. Most bacteria problems and similar problems with health-related pollutants in water wells often are discovered only after proper testing by a state-accredited laboratory and interpretation of these water-test records.
“Several of our research projects have shown that homeowners with water wells that fail at least one health-based drinking water standard are typically unaware that their water is unsafe,” he said. “Just as one example, of the 203 water wells that contained unsafe levels of coliform bacteria in our 2006 study, only 11 percent were aware of this problem before our study.
“We have found that about one-third of water-well owners have never had their water tested properly by a state-accredited laboratory, and many who have done testing don’t understand the meaning of the results.”
Inadequate water well construction and the lack of awareness of water-quality problems by well owners represent significant potential health risks among the millions of rural residents, farmers and businesses that access the shared groundwater resource, Swistock concluded.