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Water for the Private Well Owner

As a private well owner, you have complete authority, and responsibility for the quality of the water that you and your family drink. Private and public water systems that service communities annually spend significant amounts of money testing their water and maintaining the treatment systems they have in order to continue compliance with the EPA and the Safe Drinking Water Act. However, where the EPA regulates these larger water systems, there are no regulations or safeguards for you the private well owner.

Where this may be considered a good thing, it is very important to understand your well water, how it works, your water quality, and the potential for some degree of water filtration. For many private well owners it is very possible to have some water contaminant in the drinking water, from fertilizers like nitrites and nitrates, heavy metals like arsenic and lead, different fuel additives like perchlorate, naturally occurring radio active materials like radium and even protozoan cysts from cattle and other animals. Some of these water contaminants can have very serious negative health effects for you and your family, even at very low doses.

This issue can become financially important to you if you are planning on selling your house, as many people will require a water test prior to purchasing the house. Some states as well have laws on new house transactions that require testing of the well prior to completion of the sales transaction.

What can I do for my own well?

Have your well tested by a local laboratory or purchase a test kit to test the water yourself. Many local laboratories have a specific set of water test parameters already set for the private well owners. Additionally, there are many reliable test kits available to test water for many different parameters. It is a good idea to test your well three to four times in the year, during the winter thaw, early spring and late summer. Minimally it is recommended by the National Ground Water Association (http://www.wellowner.org/ ) to have your well tested annually.

If you find elevated levels of any regulated contaminant in your water, you will want to purchase a water treatment device like a reverse osmosis system that is capable of removing that water contaminant from your drinking water. A list of the EPA regulated drinking water contaminants and their potential health effect can be found at http://www.epa.gov/safewater/mcl.html#mcls. Make sure that the reverse osmosis system is independently certified by NSF International (www.nsf.org ) for the specific claim(s) that you need it for.

Watts Premier has a complete line of water filtration devices that are NSF Certified for a number of water contaminants including; arsenic, chromium, copper, protozoan cysts, lead, perchlorate, radium, nitrites and nitrates.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact one of our water quality specialists at 1-800-752-5582, or check us out online at www.wattspremier.com.

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