How To Maintain A Well For Drinking Water
It is very important to watch the type of water we drink and make sure it is from a good and hygienic source. Some Americans get their drinking water from wells, either privately owned or state owned. To make sure the water you drink is safe for consumption and general use, maintenance tests need to be run from time to time to get rid of any source of contamination. There are different types of wells however and the type of well you have determines the steps you need to take to maintain it.
About 15 million houses rely on well water in the U.S. and a lot of harm can come from drinking contaminated or polluted water.
Some things that regularly contaminate your wells are; Farmland use (feeding operations, fertilizers, livestock, animal pesticides), processes of manufacturing, fracking, overflowing sewers, wastewater treatment plant malfunction and chemicals that occur naturally (such as; radon, arsenic, uranium). The agency responsible for taking care of the safety of the public water supply in the U.S. is The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) but they don’t take care of privately owned wells.
The National Ground Water Association proposed steps that can be taken to protect wells:
- An annual test should be carried out on wells to check for the level of cleanliness, mechanical issues and a water test for contaminants.
- If you have and recurrent issues such as color change, taste change and presence of smell, the tests should be performed more than annually, or gastrointestinal illness among household members.
- Potentially hazardous materials should not be kept close to the well, materials like fertilizer, paints, motor oil and pesticides.
- Chemicals can be siphoned into the water system when the hose is placed into the mixing container for chemicals.
- To ensure proper demarcation between the waste systems, home and the well, call on an expert to do so.
- The well top should be closed unless when necessary and it should be more than a foot above ground level.
- Any well over twenty years old, should be decommissioned and a new well constructed.
Do not try to handle the servicing of your wells yourself, rather call on a professional because if you do it yourself, you may cause more harm than good as there are specific methods the professionals use to make sure that in servicing the wells, they don’t expose it to any form of contamination. Also, you do not have to wait for a problem to come up before you take care of your well, carry out the recommended routine checks, so that if there is any issue, it can be taken care of before it becomes severe.
Make sure you don’t use any unlicensed equipment in the regular use of your well, so as avoid issues that may arise from equipment failure. You should be observant of your well water, so you can be able to spot any abnormalities. Also, run regular tests on your water and when professionals are working on your well issues, keep a detailed log book of actions, and try to understand what the issues are so that if the problem is man-made, they can be addressed.
