Farmers and other well owners in general live with a misconception that adding a whole house water system to their well water source would be pointless and a waste of money. Most would insist they have the best water in the region. Yet, a day doesn't go by when they aren't in some way actively testing, monitoring and disinfecting their well water with an array of chemicals to make sure it stays safe. Even so, well owners and their water sources are at serious risk of contamination.
Yet I'll bet the last time you drove by a large farm, it never occurred to you that those same farms growing crops and stock to feed us may also be polluting our own water supply as well as the farmers'.
One cow produces as much waste per day as 18 people. That translates into billions of gallons of manure each year, much of which is spread on nearby grain fields as fertilizer. Some of it sprays into ditches and open culverts. What if there isn't enough land to soak it all up? How much land would it take to absorb that much manure? Whatever that number is, we don't have enough!
Agricultural runoff, says the Environmental Protection Agency, is the single largest source of water pollution in the nation's rivers and streams. E. coli, coli form bacteria and other contaminants found in manure can cause chronic diarrhoea, stomach illnesses as well as severe ear infections just by bathing in it.
Every year, an estimated 19.5 million Americans get sick because of parasites, viruses or bacteria in water including those stemming from human and animal waste (Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, 2009).
So why isn't anything being done about it? Why aren't more people with no access to municipal water sources taking precautions with a back up whole house water system? Why would they take chances like that when they know their water is raw and untreated?
Well, to begin with, it's hard to link a specific instance of disease to one particular cause, like water pollution. Even when tests show the water is polluted, its source of contamination may be difficult to find. The contamination could have travelled into the water at any point or from any place.
Also, only the largest farms are regulated for chemicals or contaminants in pipes or ditches. It does not regulate waste that is sprayed on a field and seeps into groundwater.
Many environmental advocates argue that agricultural pollution needs to become more of a priority with stronger federal laws giving the E.P.A. broad powers to regulate farms and permit drastic steps - like shutting down farms or blocking expansion - when watersheds become threatened.
A potential solution, regulators say, is to find new uses for manure and finance projects to use farm waste to generate electricity. But agriculture is among the state's most powerful industries. If government imposes strict new regulations, who is going to pay us back, they ask, for the revenue we lose?
In the end, environmental advocates and some lawmakers say real change will occur only when households and communities become more informed about water and take matters into their own hands at the local level.
If you get your water from a well system, you're already testing water sources for water quality. It's a sensible practice, but limited in that it offers no guarantee of contaminant-free water forever. The only way to ensure the water quality stays safe is to get control by filtering all the water you let into your home at its point of entry.
The filtration level of a whole house water system is about 5 microns; so it works best filtering out agricultural chemical or bacterial contaminants and even hard to remove elements like salt, sulphur and iron.
