National Drinking Water Week -- What is the source of your water?
Every drinking water supply in the US has a source-- it may be a reservoir, a river, an abandoned underground coal mine, or a ground water source. You can find the source of your drinking water by visiting this site:
Surf Your Watershed -- the site is sponsored by the US EPA, and it not only tells you the source of your supply, but other activities within your watershed that may affect the quality and quantity of drinking water in your area. You can learn of citizen-based groups that are working to protect your watershed, get chemical water quality analysis, and even look at a listing of impaired streams within your watershed.
Why is this important? The type of source water, whether it is a surface water or a groundwater source,often dictates the treatment regimen needed to render your water supply pure to meet the EPA's and your state's drinking water standards.
A surface water supply usually contains water from runoff of the area, as well as the effluent from wastewater treatment plants, and is also supplied by groundwater. The contribution of groundwater to the stream flow of a surface water supply can be estimated during the driest months of the year-- it's called the 10 year/7 day low flow data. When comparing this stream flow data with the area of the watershed, you can get a fairly close estimate of the actual recharge of the stream that is contributed by groundwater.
A groundwater supply may also be recharged by surface water bodies within the area, like rivers and streams. The two often contribute to each other at different times of the year. In the spring, when the rains come, surface water bodies help to recharge the aquifers containing groundwater through their stream beds, while in the fall, when it is drier, the groundwater contributes to the surface water body. In the picture above, you can see that, because of pumping, the stream is recharged by groundwater on the right hand side, but recharges the groundwater on the left hand side.
Surface water supplies often have amore complex treatment regimen than groundwater supplies-- But, we'll discuss that later. Just remember, not only water enters the surface water intake-- it carries with it all the materials held in solution, as well as particles of dirt, grit, plant and animal matter, as well.
Did you know? Water Trivia!
- There is more water held in the earth's atmosphere than in all of the earth's rivers, combined.
- If all the water vapor held in the atmosphere fell all at once, it would be enough water to cover the earth to about 1" in thickness.
- More than 25% of all bottled water comes from a municipal source of supply.
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The Surf Your Watershed site has all kinds of interesting information about watersheds all over the country!
Up next: Treatment regimens!
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Well water is usually better than surface water, quality wise, but when you say fracking, that's a whole new ballgame...
Do you have a local health department? They can usually run a test for e. coli for free-- and you can use an aquarium kit to test some of the other things... The best test is BTEX-- a general marker for Benzene, Toluene, Ethyl Benzene, and Xylene. They are just general markers for petroleum activities, and the test can be expensive, but it would be worth running it...
There should be an environmental lab near you-- or you can send it off to one. BTEX isn't thatdifficult a test to run, and is the least expensive. We usually run it as a matter of course, because it has all the general markers... Come to think of it, we usually send it off to Universal Laboratories, ourselves, and we've got an EPA certified lab at work...
Good thing #1-- the human nose can detect very small amounts of the chemical Benzene. If it smells like petroleum, sort of the sweetish smell in gas, then you may have a problem.
Good thing #2-- While fracking can contaminate aquifers, it doesn't have to do so.
The very best of luck!
Tap water thru a Brita filter, low maintenance.
I have a sink-top water filter. Its supposed to be one of the better brands. (Hopefully
).
Yes, but is the source of your water a municipal supply? And, if so, is it surface water or groundwater?
Be sure to contact your lab about procedure, and any fixatives or special things you need to do, like refrigeration...
And good luck!
That old sample? It may not be viable now...
That's great! Just be sure to change the filter regularly-- Brita filters take out the chlorine, which helps the taste-- but it also takes out the disinfection... Sometimes those filters can get lots and lots of bacteria in them.
I have no idea!
But thanks for all the information.
You've got me curious, so I will look into it.
Yes, they need to be changed every two months. I saw something growing on the bottom of the pitcher once, I was probably late changing the filter. :\
Up heah in rural New Hampsha, most homes have their own well, mine being an artesian. I believe it's about 300' feet down unda.
Because of the state of the lakes and rivers in China - uncontrolled pollution, I drink only bottled water, and boil the tap water I use for cooking. I'm sure they have treatment plants especially in the big cities (as wherein I reside) but I just don't trust even their methods of purification. I'm not even that sure about the bottled water, but at least it LOOKS pure. In Canada, Toronto's water was drinkable right from the tap, and I had a summer home on a lake that had a limestone base, and was pure enough to drink using a brita type built in filtration system for a drinking spout at the kitchen sink. I miss those days for more reasons than that.
Yeah, we had one on the faucet, (that I didn't want), and it had a long green string coming out of it. I had an absolute FIT. Algae... ICK!!!
Artesian is good, but all it means is that the level of water in the well is higher than the top of the formation that holds it-- it can still be contaminated! Unfortunately... New Hampshire has a lot of granite, doesn't it? Or am I thinking of somewhere else?
I'm sure you do!!! I don't know if you can find any, but activated carbon, like in an aquarium filter, can remove a lot of VOC's and some SOC's-- it might be worth looking for some and pouring your drinking water through a couple of times...
Be careful over there, ok?
LOL! It probably has a bit too much chloramine for his taste! I can't say that I blame him, either...
Take care, dear Merleliz!
I just LOVE the name Chattahoochee... How NEAT! I bet it means river or something in the Native American language!
Unfortunately, this is the source ofour water.
Not according to the Bible.
Not to gloat, but mine is premium clean.....ooops, too late.
They don't call it the Granite State for nuthin'. Lots and lots of granite.
Thanks Halfor the link to Fedrick, Md. My daughter lived in the area about 10 years ago. I just finished a book called "Our Stolen Future", and Theo Colborn, who appeared in the movie Gasland, is one of the authors. It talks alot about dioxen and PBC's and the effects of it on the world. It explainshow our environment is full of molecules from these toxic chemicals and ittraces the food chain all the way to the artic where the native people's blood testsare showing the same amount of toxicity as some one who has been in a toxic spill at the plant where its made!!!This book gives horror movies a PG rating! I am still in shock from some of the information! And this book was written 16 years ago!I can only imagine the harm being done by the millions of tons of plastics floating in the "garbage islands" of our oceans or the millions of gallons of Agent Orange used in Nam that is also in the water supplys. I fear we are too late to save the planet from ourunconscious destruction. No amount of money can buy it back.....
No, it was quite conscious - and it was (and still is) ignorant, selfish, careless, and inconsiderate of generations following us.
I live right smack in the middle of the Fort Dietrich cancer cluster. It's a little disconcerting that all our publicwater comes from high volume wells. Fort Dietrich also happens to be the base where biological agents are studied. That whack job whomailed out the Anthrax post 9/11 was from Fort Dietrich.