How do you know your water is clean?

I've been spoiled my whole life and been reliant on municipal water sources.

For those who have to upkeep their own water infrastructure, how do you know your water is clean? How frequent do you check your water over time?

Do you utilize any filtration and if so, what?

What makes you confident in your system(s)?

Whoever manages water rights for your area will have some notification for extreme problems. Health authorities also often list clean and unsafe ground water.  Health authorities often test well water for free or cheap once every few years.  If it's in the usa and agricultural, I hear there is something called an extention office where you can ask this sort of thing.

For our area, physical filter and uv purification is ample.  But there is no large industry on our island or up aquifer of us.

The local library is another good place to ask about drinking water.

Timothy, I am responsible for my drinking water supply and have been for over 50 years.
I also work in the field as a Civil Engineer.

I have never tested my water.
Because I have taken steps to keep detritus out, and also mosquitos birds and other animals that can cause trouble.
I take the water from just below the water surface with some tanks and at the bottom on others.
I exclude 98% of sunlight.
I allow air to circulate in the tanks.

I store any water in at least 5000 gallon tanks, upto a 120,000 L tank.
All are fed by rainfall.

I do not provide any form of chemical treatment, just time in a big tank!

At the risk of bursting some people's bubbles, I would have to opinion that the only way to tell if your water is safe from contaminants is to have it tested by a reliable testing laboratory that has specific tests for drinking water. Usually these laboratories use a gas chromatograph that can test for most types of chemicals and other man-made contaminants.
Having your water tested by a local extension agency is usually not very effective as they likely will only be testing for a nitrates from agricultural runoff and
e coli bacteria from septic contamination.
Also municipal sources of water can easily be contaminated and depending upon your local government, when and if they will broadcast the problem. In many instances the public has been drinking contaminated public water for decades.
It's easy to forget that many people can ingest large quantities of toxic material and still survive due to their extraordinary genetic makeup.
Chainsmokers have lived to ripe old ages.
And even in areas termed "cancer alleys" not everyone gets cancer.
So if I wanted peace of mind, I would pony up the money for a reliable lab test of your water.
Then you will know what if anything you're up against and what type of remedial action would be appropriate.

I tested water for trace contaminents for 15 years.  There is not a simple answer.

You must look at the local geology, first of all.  

The local geology will inform you about potential natural hazards, like arsenic or radioactivity.

Secondly you need to look at being downstream of urban or military base runoff.  PFAs are ubiquitous these days due to many uses.  Not much is known about very clear health hazards but they are now being regulated at parts per trillion levels.

Microbiological hazards and agricultural runoff hazards are also sometimes important.

You can find State databases or call your Extension.  


Sorry it's not simpler than that.

Dave,
what type of equipment did you use to test for Trace contaminants?

Rich Rayburn wrote:Dave,
what type of equipment did you use to test for Trace contaminants?

GCMS.  Gas chromatography/Mass Spectrometry and a dozen other instruments.  If you go search for water quality reports from municipalities, you'll see long lists of monitored chemicals.  With the GCMS you can test for hundreds in about 20 minutes.

LCMS is required for the PFAs (the so called "forever chemicals").  Not cheap.

If you tell me the area where you live, I might be able to find a somewhat relevant water quality report from somewhere nearby.

I am in so Colorado and we have issues not widely known.  But that happens in many places.  Usually the govt does a good job of monitoring and informing but not always.  I've also done testing in several states.  After a few decades I have good clues about what one might be concerned with.

I checked my own well water with a confirmed LST test for fecal coliforms and E. coli.  The water was completely sterile by that method.

Timothy Norton wrote:I've been spoiled my whole life and been reliant on municipal water sources.

For those who have to upkeep their own water infrastructure, how do you know your water is clean? How frequent do you check your water over time?

Do you utilize any filtration

I have had water tests done. Texas A&M works with the extension office to do testing. Its not cheap but it is thorough. I’m a chemical engineer with a lot of industrial water treatment experience. I found these analyses comprehensive, useful and
reassuring. They typically give you a drinking water range so you can see what issues you might have. I just put in a three stage filtering system because that’s what I do. It also makes my wife feel better.  A basic sedimentation filter and activated carbion filter are never a bad idea, and are not costly. I even put them on my house fed by the city.

I would not leave it to chance. Its not hard nor expensive to put in some basic protection. Do a bit of reading. Its not hard to understand the basics. And as a honesteader its great to understand and be in control of the essentials like water.

Hi Timothy,

We have just started using our water utility in the last few months.

We collect rainwater from our gutters.
Our roof has no overhanging branches, but we have a lot of fine dust.
Water enters our tanks through a basket filter under the downspouts.
We use a float & filter inside the tank to pull water from six inches below the surface.
In the house we have a 50 micron filter before the pump (which pretty much doesn't catch anything).
After the pressure tank the water goes through a 20 micron filter and 1 micron filter, then out to the rest of the house.
We have one faucet in the kitchen for drinking water; it has a 6-candle ceramic filter.

We had an Essential Rainwater Test done from Simple Labs on our non-drinking water.
It tested better than our state utility, state well average, and bottled water average on almost every measure.
It beats EPA regs for municipalities.
On stricter measures there are three areas to pay attention to, because we have detectable amounts of lead, and our cadmium and copper levels are slightly above those markers (but again, below requirements for municipalities). It is much better than the local well water, which has high levels of arsenic and uranium.

We also got quick test strips for coliform bacteria. We test with those periodically. If we have a big rain we test again. If we transfer water between tanks we test again. We also tested hot water separately to see if we were growing stuff in our mini tank heaters.

If we follow instructions, our water has always tested clean. We don't dump the test water when they say to, and after twice the alloted time, we sometimes show some coliform. So that means our coliform levels are below detected levels according to standard tests, but we do have some coliform and if we incubate a long time they show up.

Really, it is a balance and almost a personality choice. Like, I have a friend planning to more to our state, and her primary criterion is to live close to a hospital, just in case, so she is looking in the city. We, on the other hand, live 40 minutes from the closest (lousy) hospital. 2 hours from a city hospital, and several states away from a hospital we would have a huge amount of faith in. Are you someone who lets your kids play outside for hours without checking in? Are you someone who won't drive on the highway? I'm not judging either way; we all have our lifestyle choices and safety criteria and comfort levels. None of them have to make sense to others (except maybe to those we live with, at least to some extent!) I know in some areas (big cats!) I probably look like an over-protective fearful person, and in others (job security) I might seem cavalier and reckless. It also depends hugely on who is doing the observing, and what their own measures are.

Luckily my hub & I are on the same page with water. We are careful enough to want the testing, and to try to know as much as we can about our water quality. We are careful enough to ceramic filter our drinking water (even though our testing shows that we don't really have to... because of course a test is only a snapshot). We are relaxed enough to decide we don't need to bleach our water or use UV or reverse osmosis, etc. because we both have the same calculation of cost/benefit and it just doesn't seem necessary. And if we do end up with some weird brain-eating amoeba or something, I think we will feel that we made clear-eyed decisions and took calculated risks, etc., and it is what it is...

The main difference is that when you are on a utility you take similar risks but can stay blissfully ignorant of them and when you get a brain-eating amoeba you can get mad at the utility or the state or whoever, but when you are on your own and you get a brain-eating amoeba you don't have anyone else to blame.

You are doing the right thing, to think this through, and gather info from others. Know that you will not find a consensus response (obvious already), but hopefully going through the exercise will help you figure out what your needs and wants and comfort levels are when it comes to setting up your system.

Have fun with it!

Place your water in a glass jar out in sunlight for 24 hours. It will sterilize any bacteria and dissolve any minerals.

If you don't believe it, get yourself a cheap tds/pH meter online for cheap and do a before and after. You will see the dissolve solids drop down the sunlight will dissolve the stuff in the water. Keep storage for rainy days etc.

And or add baking soda to alkalize it to kill any pathogens, and or lemon juice to help with digestion if anything gets through. Also these two help preserve water in bottles for long time.

Filtration all depends on your raw water whether rain barrels or well.
You have to know what to treat. When it comes to water you have to pay the piper there's no free lunch. Unfortunately those days of clear springs are getting far gone. The purest water today has some sort of infiltration or starting to. It's sad.

Timothy Norton wrote:I've been spoiled my whole life and been reliant on municipal water sources.
For those who have to upkeep their own water infrastructure, how do you know your water is clean? How frequent do you check your water over time?
Do you utilize any filtration and if so, what?
What makes you confident in your system(s)?

In the Central sands of Wisconsin, we are lucky to have 35 ft of sand with first water at 10 ft under our feet to help filtrate the bad stuff.
So our water is "naturally" great tasting and clean. Our private well sits on a wealth of water, and potato farmers have figured that out: they are here pumping water like crazy while adding stuff to grow crops that are endangering our water.
1/ we get it checked once a year for excess nitrates and pesticides and we pay attention to what our neighbors are reporting but in our community, not many people check their water [If it tastes OK and it is clear, they think it's good enough]. A simple test costs $60.00, and I think it should be free or nearly free. We often have some free testing that measures only for nitrates, because if nitrates are high, chances are other stuff is too. Most are aware that we have PFAS, however, the legislative appetite to treat is absent "It costs too much money". When a well is compromised, you can buy an osmosis system, drill a new well or leave.
2/ when we bought the property, the previous owners had not one but 2 filtration system that included frequent backwashing. They were totally unnecessary and  worse, when you backwash, all that salt goes into the ground, so we removed both and installed a particle filter. For the crops/ animals we also collect rain water
3/ what makes me confident? we test it once a year and I watch it like a hawk. I'm also active in fighting PFAS ,which I think are the worst thing ever invented. As I speak, every newborn has some PFAS  in their body. I want them banned period!
Here, the PFAS contamination comes from farmers wanting to save a buck on fertilizers so they use the dregs of reclaimed water: In a water treatment plant, water is filtered. Well, the solids that are left from all the poop in septic systems makes for great abundant and cheap fertilizer. Unfortunately, they also add all the crap that people use, such as medications, house chemicals etc... Even slaughterhouse crap can go in. Unfortunately, that stuff is full of PFAS ,and since we all use things containing PFAS,  we are all to blame, technically. These products [Scotch guard, coated paper plates] are so 'convenient' that fast food franchises are loath to go back to dishwashing. [Plus, they would have to hire new personnel to do the wash, so they figure they save money]
Already, they have found PFAS in places as far removed as the tissue of bears in the Arctic. I suspect this may become the silent killer of the human race, through cancers, depleted immune systems etc.

We live in a very rural area in the very middle of 80 acres of forest land.  Our well is, if I remember correctly, 285 feet.  I don't worry at all about our water quality.  I just figure Mother Earth filtered it for me.

If you live (or consider buying) land that was used for agriculture or orchards arsenic or DDT  may be a major threat you want to check for.

From the mid 1800s up until WW2 farmers used huge quantities of copper arsenic, then lead arsenic on orchards and farm crops.

They used so much that many researchers think that what were considered polio outbreaks back then were the above mentioned chemicals. The symptoms and the damage are the same.

DDT came on strong WW2 era with similar neurological results in humans.

Fortunately, Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring pulled the mask off all that had been covered up and created enough outrage to force the DDT ban.

The book I learned this from was Turtles All the Way Down: Vaccine Science and Myth
if you want more detail.

My water comes from an artesian spring  2,200 feet up the mountain.
I had it tested 39 years ago when I bought the place.
It failed for excessive particulates but passed for harmful substances.
It is cold and clear; they say it is from glacial melt.
We occasionally get debris that rolls down the line; usually, it gets sucked over to the hydro, plugging the nozzle, which is a simple fix.

 

This is fantastic, I really enjoyed reading the posts and the commitment and experience that is transmitted.
Perhaps I am the danger to water?
When I worked for a local council in the UK, a long time ago, I heard of a pollution peak affecting air and water quality.
After much research, the source of the pollution was narrowed down to a crematorium, I kid you not.
Special filters had to be introduced to crematoria chimneys.

I Smoked all sorts of crap for many many years; stopped suddenly on a Wednesday,
Rode m/cycles with occasional stunt work - major accidents as a passenger in cars, oh the irony,
Drunk questionable water in developing countries with no ill effects …..
And so much more and still here to tell an occasional tale.

Fairly recently read somewhere that chickens were suffering from ddt poisoning, still to be found in some places,
I understand that Water analysis will find particularly what you ask for.
Is that right? Do you have to specify the chemicals? If you don’t specify, can elements be missed?

When needs must, I have used charcoal, clay and sunlight for drinking water.
Currently, I let the distant municipality deal with the cleanliness of my water, sometimes using clay pots like those used in N.Africa for example, for short term water storage.
Thank you all
Blessings
M-H

I use an Itehil water filter for all our drinking water. Spend an hour per week filtering into containers I have rinsed with hydrogen peroxide. The bypass water goes onto plants. I have a PPM meter to check the water going in and coming out. Drinking water is 20 ppm, bypass water is 450 ppm. Source water varies because I have cistern, wells and RWD water. The wells are old, hand dug lined with limestone. You could break a tooth biting that water but my garden doesn’t mind.

My water is probably not clean! I know this because we currently use 'hill water', water from the stream, for our house water. It should be from a spring above the house which tested perfect by the local environmental health team a few years ago. However the spring needs digging out, so a pipe in the stream is our 'temporary fix'. The stream is not too bad - the main spring is just a bit further up the hill than our own spring. Since it is open to the elements and any passing sheep however, there is a high risk of bacterial contamination. I just make sure all drinking water is boiled well.
We do get a nice peaty colour in the bath water after a lot of rain though

What a great topic.
Dave Zale, your experience is fascinating.
Kimi your comments have been interesting reading.
They say Australia is a lucky country and I can see one of the reasons.
We dont have the same problems of contamination as you seem to have in N America,
We are an older continent and we rarely use water from wells so maybe this has contributed to more rainfall and surface water catchment.
Personally I live in the middle of a 7900 Hectare forest so dust and flying pollutants may be greatly reduced.
Its been an eye opener to read the notes.

Interesting timing.  About an hour after I posted about my Itehil, our rural water system went out.  
So my 6 gallons of filtered water are in play, along with my bypass water.  There's also 15 gallons of water in the basement stored in distilled water containers.  Left overs from when my power system used flooded lead acid batteries.

I have a grid powered submersible pump in one of the hand dug wells, two DC pumps in the other, and another DC pump in the cistern.
Oh and a pond about 2 acres in size just down the hill.

I haven't tried filtering pond water. More likely to try that than gunking up my filters with limestone water.

We used to filter through a Berkey drip filter.  I didn't have the PPM meter then so I honestly don't know how much it was removing.

Get it tested if you’re worried. Call the local health department and they will generally have info and coolers to send it in. Certain states will let you test for the most common things for free once a year if you sign up for it (and can navigate their garbage websites.)

I haven't done drinking water but we recycled water in the shop so some lessons to share from that.

Filtration size.  5 micron muddy water is still muddy water after the filter.  Went to a radiator shop class where they were pumping mud/muddy water out of a trap and through a 0.5 micron filter press system and that water was coming out clear.  So clarifying water is some place between those.  Still isn't chemically clean though

Running untreated water through a 5 micron filter means it will plug off fairly quickly with organic growth even if the silts don't plug it off.  You can stop using it with half the filter life left and let it sit 2 weeks doing nothing and restart and the organic growth will have nearly plugged it off.

Our system was the floor sump with an oil trap in first chamber.  Most of the big sediments settled there.  It siphon overflowed into a 2nd chamber with the sump pump.  It was pumped up to a cone bottom settling tank with center baffle.  It was muddy water at that point.  We flocked there and settled.  Then ran it thru a 5 micron bag filter to the holding tank for recycling.  Dissolved salts and organic built up water with each loop.   An aeration stone with air pump added to the cone tank helped but didn't solve it.  

The main thing to worry about in water is total coliform, fecal coliform. Then you have nitrates, lead/copper if you have such pipes, pfos if you have said factories in the area. For farms the main one is nitrates and the coliforms.

Local labs will test them for about 30-50 per test. Or you can buy the test strips to give you an idea of what's going on.

A basic filtration would be a 30 micron filter, followed by a 5 micron filter, then an activated carbon filter. Activated carbon also pulls out pfos and taste and odors like low levels of sulfur. Any iron or manganese will need a special type of filter unit. Same with hard ess. That's usually in well water.

You can get a uv light if you have the voltage for it or sit it out in sunlight.

If you want to stick to that municipal water quality I suggest get a basic filtration going for your shower and grey/black water, then get you a simple reverse osmosis system for your drinking water. You can plumb the reverse osmosis(RO)filters under the sink and also plumb it to your ice maker on your fridge.

They have cheap basic water test kits. Gives you an idea of what's going on with your water. I seen folks build filtration ponds where each ponds contains filtration media that trickles into another pond. They add combinations of fish and plants to clean up the water.

Phytoremediation is a big key to pulling out or storing toxic chemicals from soil and waters. There so many common and so call invasive plants that pull out heavy metals and toxins in the soil. They utilize this is constructed wetlands and wetland restoration. And Superfund sites.

John C Daley wrote:Timothy, I am responsible for my drinking water supply and have been for over 50 years.
I also work in the field as a Civil Engineer.

I have never tested my water.
I allow air to circulate in the tanks.

I do not provide any form of chemical treatment, just time in a big tank!

Do you mean you never test raw water, the potable water after treatment, or never ever at all?

How do you circulate air in the tanks? And why do you do this?

How does time in a big tank affect the water? I assume it purifies it?

Dakota I will give my response in capitals

Do you mean you never test raw water, the potable water after treatment, or never ever at all? NEVER FOUND THE NEED TO

How do you circulate air in the tanks?  THE TANKS HAVE AIR ABOVE THE WATER SURFACE, THE NATURAL INTERACTION AT THE WATER SURFACE ADDS OXYGEN TO THE WATER.
WITH A LONG DETENTION TIME IT IS SUFFICIENT.
And why do you do this? I DONT ADD AIR, I JUST ALLOW NORMAL INTERACTION.

How does time in a big tank affect the water? I assume it purifies it?  NOT SURE I AM GUESSING 2 MONTHS BUT I WILL INVESTIGATE / YES, CORRECT
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I can tell you mine is NOT!

I have tested it and it failed both primary and secondary thresholds.

A few things I am just barely over, like nitrates at one tenth over allowable levels. But the nuisance ones I am way over on. Iron and salt water. Neither pose a health risk but they are inconvenient.

At 37 mgs per liter our water is orange. Our clothes are orange and out dishes are orange. It’s rust and I will turn orange if I don’t scrub my hair and skin once a week with clarifying shampoo using it as a body wash. Body hair is the worst to deal with.

Then there is the seawater. It’s just under the 2000 mg per liter threshold so it’s brackish water and not full seawater but it’s bad. Soap does not lather. Clothes take forever to dry in the dryer, and you never really feel clean.

I am working on a way to mitigate this but the water company was blown away. By far the most costly water they ever saw to try and clean. The starting cost was $45,000 in filtering systems.

Steve, your problem looks bad! Is it worth $45000 to solve?

John C Daley wrote:Steve, your problem looks bad! Is it worth $45000 to solve?

The simple mathematical answer is no. Despite being on a point on one of the furthest islands out to sea, but still accessible by bridge, the house only has a value of $220,000 once rebuilt. While we bought it for half that, rebuild will be around $50,000 making a $45,000 investment in water really questionable. (Purchase price, plus rebuild costs, plus water would cost us $211,00, thus with a sale of $220,000 we would make $9000 profit. The problem with that is, people don't care what you had to do to get the water drinkable. They just expect a house to have water they can drink. And to be fair, banks financing houses do as well.

The long and short of it is that I need to deal with this. All is not dire though as unless the Atlantic Ocean is suddenly drained, I have all the water that I will ever need. It is just salty and full of iron. But that saves me from concerns regarding backwashing.

The price quoted was for a turn-key operation, and to turn our water into drinkable water. They have to do this because by law they cannot partially filter water. That would make them liable if someone was to see a water filtration system and think somehow the water was safe to drink and it was only better, but not fully drinkable. I am not under those laws however as a homeowner.

The other issue with that quote is that their product removes 12 mg/per liter of iron, therefore I would need three of their systems. But they do make systems that pull 30 mg/liter out of the water… just not their system. So it was like when I had sheep. I needed more selenium in my sheep, but grain only provided 3%, so the grain company and their nutritionist suggested three times more grain to get the sheep where they needed to be. I was like, ‘why not just give selenium supplement” and the guys said, “because we don’t sell it”.

So a person has to be wary of these situations. THEY might only have one way to do it, but there might be work-arounds.

A workaround for me might be figuring out a way to just get the iron out first.

Hydrogen hydrosulfide (hydrogen peroxide) works well because it chemically changes the water soluble iron into particles that regular water filters can pull out of the water. I am wondering if using a typical water and brine system, but swapping out the salt for hydrogen peroxide powder might work? But other chemicals that work on iron are citric acid, oxalic acid, sodium hydrosulfide and vinegar as well. All these are readily available online because they are organic, and water softener companies recommend adding hydrogen hydrosulfide to the brine well once a year for yearly maintenance. What if I used that primarily?

I am thinking now, perhaps using oxalic acid in a pretreatment tank might get the iron out of suspension, which can then be skimmed off, with the cleaner water going through a secondary filter to get the rest of the iron out. But I can also test the rest. There are only two of us here (empty-nesters) so we only go through 100 gallons of water per day.

From there, into a RO system to clean up what remains and we may be there for drinking water That would cost us about $7000 but less than $45,000.

Even without the $4500 RO system, we would no longer be dealing with orange water on us, clothing, or dishes. Right now we buy 4 gallons of drinking water and it costs us $5 and it lasts us all week. I am fine with doing that. Just getting the iron out of everything would be nice.

My land came with the well. There was a water contingency in the sales contract, but it was on me to fix the pump and verify good water.

I got a test kit from Home Depot, but before I used it I tracked down a rusty pipe coming out of the Pitless Addapter; where the pipe comes out of the ground and starts feeding to the house. A drinking water safe brass pipe replaced the iron one. And pump wasn't actually broken, so once the pipes were good I was able to test the water for bacteria and lead. It all checked out.

There was hard water and some iron.

For the iron there's a red tint to everything it touches but it's mostly harmless. I've been using treatment tablets once a month and the tint has gone away. Drop 8 tablets down the well head and wait 30 minutes, then flush the system for an hour or two. The system is completely off grid with solar so I have to do it during sunny days.

Hard water is what it is. My city water had it years ago and someone installed a softener, but I don't have time for that. Someone who's been out here for a while said to avoid galvanized for water storage.

* I know there's a post above about iron from the ocean, and I understand my fix isn't gonna work for that. *