We recently read that the Federal Government has decided to investigate the severity and cause elevated nitrate and bacteria levels in well water out in the State of Washington.

From the sounds of things, the situation has gone on for quite some time… and residents in rural Lower Yakima Valley may have had elevated nitrate and bacteria for quite some time now w/o anyone really looking into where the contaminants came from.

Stories like this one ought to make EVERY private well owner seriously consider having their water tested by a certified water testing laboratory and performing routine checks themselves with at-home well water test kits — because the responsibility for the safety of private well water rests solely with well owners.

YAKIMA, Wash. — An effort to address polluted groundwater consumed by many rural Lower Yakima Valley residents was formally launched Thursday as local, state and federal officials pledged to tackle a stubborn problem that’s been decades in the making.

“It’s going to be a big challenge. It’s a difficult problem,” said Tom Tebb, regional director for the state Department of Ecology in Yakima.

“But it matters because we have people drinking water contaminated by nitrate and bacteria and at unsafe levels in some cases,” Tebb said at a news conference to announce the effort.

Five agencies released the final version of a report on groundwater quality that is a wide-ranging compilation of historical data about the contamination, health effects, regulatory responsibilities and recommendations for action.

…

Of some 30,000 private wells in the Lower Valley, 20 percent have elevated levels of nitrate and bacteria.

This week, federal regulators began their own testing program on 150 wells to try and determine the source of the nitrates and bacteria.

To make sure the samples are tested in a timely fashion, a mobile laboratory has been driven to Yakima from Manchester, Wash., on the Kitsap Peninsula, home of the regional lab for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Two microbiologists will test for coliform bacteria, fecal coliform and e. coli and conduct “microbial source tracking” to determine if the bacteria are human or ruminant. Cattle are ruminants, and manure from dairy and feedlots is one suspected source of both nitrate and bacterial contamination.

Another round of testing in April will help the agency determine the link between elevated levels of nitrate and sources of nitrate, which can come from manure, chemical fertilizer or septic systems.

If the test results allow regulators to identify obvious sources of pollution, enforcement action could follow, said Tom Eaton, director of the Washington operations office of the EPA in Seattle.

Results are expected sometime this summer. ( source )

If you own a private well and do not have your water tested on a regular basis you run the risk of exposure to an almost limitless number of contaminants that can get into the aquifer at any time and for a number of reasons. Natural disasters, changes in weather patterns, heavy demand from other well owners, etc. can all affect the quality of the water in your well.

Water Tests by a Certified Drinking Water Testing Lab

Short of having the Environmental Protection Agency come out and test your well and/or water, no better option exists than to have your water tested by a certified drinking water testing laboratory like National Testing Laboratories which offers three levels of testing:

Basic Test Kit — Tests for 27 Common Drinking Water Contaminants: Aluminum, Arsenic, Barium, Cadmium, Calcium, Chromium, Copper, Iron, Lead, Magnesium, Manganese, Mercury, Nickel, Selenium, Silver, Sodium, Zinc, Alkalinity, Chloride, Fluoride, Nitrate as N, Nitrite as N, Sulfate, Hardness, pH (Standard Units), Total Dissolved Solids, and Turbidity (Turbidity Units).

Most Popular Test Kit — Tests for 83 Drinking Water Contaminants: Bacteria (presence/absence for coliform and E.coli), (19) heavy metals and minerals, (6) other inorganic chemicals, (5) physical characteristics, (4) trihalomethanes and (47) volatile organic chemicals.

Most Popular + Pesticides — Tests for 83 Drinking Water Contaminants: Bacteria (presence/absence for coliform and E.coli), (19) heavy metals and minerals, (6) other inorganic chemicals, (5) physical characteristics, (4) trihalomethanes and (47) volatile organic chemicals plus an additional 20 tests for pesticides, herbicides and PCB’s.

SusanB wrote us recently to ask a question that many people people have probably asked after reading some of the postings here on the Water Testing Blog, but never bothered to ask anyone at the Water Testing Blog…

Your site and many others talk about ‘reverse osmosis‘ water treatment systems all the time but never really explain how they work. Are they just some sort of fancy carbon filter or something? I really want to know because I need to do something about my bad water and if they’re no different, except in price, than a simple carbon filter then I won’t waste my money on one. Can you explain the difference? IS there a difference? Thanks!

Actually, SusanB, we have posted information on Reverse Osmosis Water Filters in the past that addresses most of the questions you asked…

• What is Reverse Osmosis
• How Do Reverse Osmosis Systems Work
• Why Install a Reverse Osmosis Water Filter?
• Where Can I Buy Replacement RO Membranes?

And now, after re-reading our own posts we have decided that we really ought to locate and re-post a more user-friendly definition and explanation of reverse osmosis water filtration.

There are a range of water filtration systems available to today’s consumer to meet the different challenges of raising water quality. Often, a simple activated carbon filter does the trick, but many people have more complicated water problems, and find that they need more complex water filtration systems because of this. A reverse osmosis water filtration system will, in many cases, solve these more advanced problems.

Reverse osmosis (RO) water filtration is a multi-step water filtering process which works slowly but is extremely effective. Reverse osmosis systems are generally used to treat cooking and drinking water supplies. It’s often used in industry but works very well in the home. Reverse osmosis uses the principles of osmosis (in which material passes slowly through a membrane and is concentrated and purified in the process) to produce very clean water.

The first step is that a simple sediment filter is installed and all water to be used passes through it; the filter catches large particles of materials such as rust or calcium carbonate (a compound which is not at all harmful but which isn’t desirable in your drinking and cooking water – it’s commonly used as an antacid). Sometimes a second filter of a similar design, but more fine, is used after the initial filtering. An activated carbon filter traps organic chemicals, and then the RO filter, which is a very fine membrane, is used. It may be helpful to think of all these filters as being similar to sieves with differently-sized holes. Basically, the process of reverse osmosis water filtration would be akin to draining cooked food through a series of increasingly-fine sieves, rather than just emptying the pot into a basic perforated colander. Reverse osmosis water filtration systems, being more complex and increasingly sensitive, can trap far more contaminants than just one simple carbon filter. Some RO systems will, even after the water has passed through the RO membrane, use yet another carbon filter or, alternatively, an ultra-violet lamp, to purify the water even further. The result of all of this filtering is extremely high quality water.

Reverse osmosis is not the most efficient of all water filtration systems, and some have expressed concern about the fact that it takes approximately four gallons of processed water to result in one gallon of clear water. However, its effectiveness makes it a preferred water filtration method for many. Some describe it as “ultrafiltration,” which gives a sense of how powerful RO is. RO results in very pure water. The Water Quality Association says that RO filter systems produce water purity levels as high as 95 percent, which is extraordinary.

The fact remains that reverse osmosis water purification systems remove an astounding range of contaminants from your water. Arsenic, barium, cadmium, chromium (hexavalent), chromium (trivalent), copper, lead, nitrate, nitrite, radium 226/228, selenium, iron and TDS are all removed from your water with an RO system.

A reverse osmosis water filtering system is obviously more complicated than a simple carbon-filter water pitcher, but the benefits of its complex design are also obvious. For those who are concerned not merely with the aesthetics of their water – taste – but have more concrete problems with water quality, an RO water filter may be the best solution to your problem. ( source )

Well, SusanB, and everyone else reading this, we hope the information above helped you to understand a little bit more about the ways in which reverse osmosis water filters operate and the benefits they offer. Below you will find links to three popular reverse osmosis water filters units available from WaterFilters.Net.

Over the past 2 years we have mentioned test strips for commonly tested water parameters such as chlorine, pH, water hardness, bacteria, and heavy metals on a regular basis. Recently someone asked us if we knew of test strips for other, less commonly tested water parameters.

Without knowing exactly WHICH unusual water parameters to look for we just started searching for odd water contaminants and came up with the following:

Nitrate: In inorganic chemistry, a nitrate is a salt of nitric acid with an ion composed of one nitrogen and three oxygen atoms (NO₃). In organic chemistry the esters of nitric acid and various alcohols are called nitrates. Nitrogen trioxide is an alternative name for nitrate. ( source )

Nitrite: The nitrite ion is NO₂. The anion is bent, being isoelectronic with ozone. More generally, a nitrite compound is either a salt or an ester of nitrous acid. ( source )

WaterWorks™ Nitrate / Nitrite (as Nitrogen) test strips make in-home and field testing for nitrates and nitrites in water a fast, easy process. This product requires no tablets, powders, or counting of drops… making it well-suited for on-site well testing or the occasional testing of drinking water at home.

Each WaterWorks™ Nitrate / Nitrite test strip performs (1) one nitrate test and (1) one nitrate test.

* Dip strip into sample for a period of two seconds
* Remove strip and wait one minute
* Compare developed colors on test pads to color charts on bottle label

Each bottle of WaterWorks™ Nitrate / Nitrite test strips comes with a total of (50) fifty nitrite tests and (50) nitrate tests.

Detection Ranges:

Total Nitrate (NO3): 0, 0.5, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50 ppm (mg/L).

Total Nitrite (NO2): 0.15, 0.3, 1, 1.5, 3, 10 ppm (mg/L)

Going to the tap on the front of the refrigerator instead of the using the faucet may not do you any favors when it comes to filling your glass with better, safer drinking water. The water line running to the tap on your refrigerator typically comes straight from the wall… so the quality of the water coming from the refrigerator will match the quality of the water coming out of any other faucet in your home.

While some newer refrigerators do come with inline filters for water and ice cubes, some do not. Check your manual to see if your refrigerator came with some sort of inline refrigerator water filtration unit. If it did, and you have not changed the filter in a long time — or perhaps ever — you may want to consider doing that real soon.

Some filters do not simply clog up when they become full. Instead, some clogged water filters allow unfiltered water to bypass their filtration media. That unfiltered water winds up floating in your iced tea and/or crystallized in your ice cubes. Not a very appetizing thought, right?

As always, before toy invest in a water filtration system of ANY kind, make sure you get your water tested by a certified water testing laboratory such as Suburban Water Testing Labs, Inc. and perform routine at-home water quality tests to make sure the filtration system you purchased continues to do its job correctly.

Spencer wrote in and asked…

Hello,

I am looking for an all-in-one home test kit that will show ppm levels. I thought I saw a product that was around $30 but now I can’t find the web-site.

Do you have any suggestions?

Thanks,

Spencer

Thank you for your question, Spencer. For the most part all drinking water test kits (worth buying) should the majority of their results in parts per million, with the exception of some tests for metals which report their results in parts per billion. Example: Heavy Metals Check.

Getting to the rest of your question, a brand of home water test kits called WaterSafe manufactures a test kit called the All-in-One and it tests drinking water for the following: Bacteria, Lead, Pesticides (atrazine & Simazine), Iron, Total Chlorine, Total Hardness, pH, and Nitrates/Nitrites.

In our experience the average consumer can pick up the WaterSafe All-in-One Water Test Kit for around $20 from several online vendors including, but not limited to, the following:

• Filters Fast (www.filtersfast.com) — WaterSafe All-in-One Test Kit

• Filter Water (www.filterwater.com) — WaterSafe All-in-One Test Kit

Hopefully we have given you the information you asked for. In the event that you did not mean the WaterSafe All-in-One Water Test Kit specifically, and instead used the term ‘all-in-one’ in a more general manner, you may want to take a look at another brand of home water test kits: SenSafe.

Under the SenSafe brand you will find test kits such as the Drinking Water Quality Test Kit which typically costs a little bit more than the WaterSafe All-in-One Water Test Kit, but tests for additional parameters: Copper, Free Chlorine, Sulfate, Chloride and Hydrogen Sulfide (rotten egg smell).

You can usually find the Drinking Water Quality Test Kit by SenSafe selling online for around $32 to $36 depending upon where you look.

Feel free to contact us again, Spencer, if you have any other water quality testing questions!

Ever wonder about the quality of the water in the stream running on the edge of your property where the kids play? How about the water in the pond or lake where you go swimming in the Summer?

If you have not, then you probably don’t know that those bodies of water can sometimes contain high levels of nitrates, nitrites, bacteria, and other natural ‘things’ which can, in the right concentrations, cause illness in animals and humans.

• Health officials closely monitor water conditions at public beaches for a reason: High levels of the aforementioned naturally occurring compounds, and others, can make swimmers ill.

• Pond owners monitor the conditions of the water in their ponds for a reason: Too much of the aforementioned naturally occurring compounds makes the water in their ponds toxic to fish… and it costs money to replace fish.

• Environmentalists pay close attention to nitrate, nitrite and bacteria levels in surface water for a reason: Too much or too little of any may signal the growth or lack of growth of plant and animal-life critical to the ecosystem.

So whether you want to take a dip in the lake, wade out into the river, play in the stream, or raise healthy coy in your pond, chances are you will want to keep tabs on water quality.

In an earlier posting we discussed possible water quality problems caused by runoff from farms raising cows and from fields where farmers spread large amounts of cow manure as fertilizer. This time we bring news of watershed region in Oklahoma allegedly harmed by runoff from a different kind of farm: Chicken farms.

Excessive amounts of nutrients, primarily from runoff from fields where poultry waste has been used as fertilizer, have caused excessive aquatic vegetation, much of it algae, to become a problem in Lake Tenkiller, said Shanon Phillips, director of the Water Quality Division for the Oklahoma Conservation Commission.

Phillips is the first of a long list of scientists who are expected to testify for the state in Oklahoma’s poultry industry pollution lawsuit.

The state claims that 11 poultry companies are legally responsible for the handling and disposal of poultry waste — also known as litter — that the state says has damaged portions of the Illinois River watershed in Oklahoma. ( source )

Now who would have thought chickens (and their waste) could make such a big mess and cause such a problem? At this point the answer to that question really does not matter. The lawyers, judges, government, and big corporations figuring out what to DO about the situation does matter, though.

How does this article about chicken waste affecting a lake affect drinking water and why did we bother writing about the topic? Simple: More people need to take a closer look at the events and things that could impact their water supply.

If more people took it upon themselves to test their drinking water and make their findings public when problems arose perhaps government officials and big corporations would have to take action about situations like excess nitrate, nitrates and bacteria entering the environment before entire ecosystems collapsed or required substantial amounts of time and effort to remediate.

A Rock Hill, SC company called Industrial Test Systems, Inc. manufactures a water quality test kit which they call the COMPLETE Water Quality Test Kit and several people have asked us for a list of the parameters it can test for.

Before we provide you with the list of items contained by the COMPLETE Water Quality Test Kit, please remember that NO at-home or do-it-yourself water quality test kit will give you a total understanding of your water’s contaminant levels and that only water analysis performed by a certified water testing laboratory will tell the full story.

Consumers should use water quality test kits such as the COMPLETE Water Quality Test Kit and comparable water testing kits such as the SenSafe Water Quality Test Kit and WaterSafe All-in-One Water Test Kit as screening tools only.

COMPLETE Water Quality Test Kit contains: 2 tests for each parameter except bacteria.

• Test for Iron in 2 Minutes
• Test for Copper in 30 Seconds
• Test for Chloride in 40 Seconds
• Test for Nitrate & Nitrite as N in 1 Minute
• Test for pH in 20 Seconds
• Test for Total Alkalinity in 20 Seconds
• Test for Total Chlorine in 20 Seconds
• Test for Total Hardness in 20 Seconds
• Test for Free Chlorine in 10 Seconds
• Test for Sulfate in 40 Seconds
• Test for Hydrogen Sulfide in 30 Seconds
• Test for Coliform Bacteria presence/absence in 48 Hours

You can find the COMPLETE Water Quality Test Kit, and other water quality test kits, available for immediate shipping from online retailers such as FiltersFast.Com and TestProducts.Com.

Sounds pretty darn gross, does it not? Imagine going to your kitchen faucet for a glass of cold, refreshing water one morning and instead getting a glass full of something that smelled like… a barn.

As nasty as that sounds, for some folks that actually happens.

MORRISON, Wis. — All it took was an early thaw for the drinking water here to become unsafe.

There are 41,000 dairy cows in Brown County, which includes Morrison, and they produce more than 260 million gallons of manure each year, much of which is spread on nearby grain fields. Other farmers receive fees to cover their land with slaughterhouse waste and treated sewage.

In measured amounts, that waste acts as fertilizer. But if the amounts are excessive, bacteria and chemicals can flow into the ground and contaminate residents’ tap water.

In Morrison, more than 100 wells were polluted by agricultural runoff within a few months, according to local officials. As parasites and bacteria seeped into drinking water, residents suffered from chronic diarrhea, stomach illnesses and severe ear infections.

“Sometimes it smells like a barn coming out of the faucet,” said Lisa Barnard, who lives a few towns over, and just 15 miles from the city of Green Bay. ( source )

One would suppose that local and state health officials examined all of the evidence and looked at the situation from multiple angles before allowing, and in some cases encouraging, farmers to make use of the cows’ waste products they did, but Mother Nature can always find a way to get around the best made plans of men.

Most people know that natural disasters such as floods contaminate drinking water pulled from wells but many do not think about things like farm runoff… which can occur at pretty much any time of year and will typically contain nitrates, nitrites, coliform bacteria and a host of other ‘nasties’ that people ought not consume.

In 2006, an unusually early thaw in Brown County melted frozen fields, including some that were covered in manure. Within days, according to a county study, more than 100 wells were contaminated with coliform bacteria, E. coli, or nitrates — byproducts of manure or other fertilizers.

…

Some residents did not realize that their water was contaminated until their neighbors fell ill, which prompted them to test their own water. ( source )

As the old phrase goes, “Sh#t rolls downhill.” In cases like this, though, the sh#t runs downhill and into people’s wells.

Well Water Testing

Nothing takes the place of professional water testing performed by a certified water testing laboratory. Period. At-home and/or do-it-yourself water test kits serve as ideal screening methods for water contamination only.

With that said, please take a look at the following test kits designed for testing well water:

Water Quality Test Kit

Well Drillers Master Test Kit

Well Drillers Standard Test Kit

The WaterSafe brand of home water test kits also released a Well Water Test Kit recently.

For more information on the effects flooding can have on well water, please see an earlier Water Testing Blog entry called “Well and Ground Water Testing in Flood Zones“.