My well water is clean, right?

Many of our customers rely on their well or spring to provide water for their homes, gardens and commercial agriculture. One comment we frequently get is “Well and Spring water is clean and pure!” While many wells and springs in our area produce excellent quality water, the very fact that the water comes from a well or spring does not automatically make it clean and pure! In this blog we’ll explore what it means to have clean or pure water and look at the common causes of wells or springs NOT having clean or pure water.

Does the water taste good? Is the water clear? Is the water pure & clean? While these questions may seem synonymous, they are all actually quite different! Clear water is good, but bacteria are much smaller than the human eye can detect. Water can taste good, but still have harmful amounts of arsenic, lead or other contaminates in it. On the other hand, your well or spring can have water that stains bathroom fixtures brown with iron or leave white scaly deposits and doesn’t taste very good, and yet it is free of heavy metals and bacterial contamination. Water from your well or spring usually has something in it, the questions to then ask are: What is in my water? How much of it is in my water? Is that ‘something’ harmful?

So how do you know if your water is clean and pure? To know what is in your water, how much of it there is and if it has any negative health effects, you need to test your water. Check this blog article for more information on testing your water.

So what are the common causes of contamination that we encounter with wells and springs in our area? First let’s break it down by type of contamination.

Bacterial Contamination

Bacterial contamination is when there is bacteria present in the water from the well or the spring. Bacterial contamination in wells comes from several sources. Typically it is very old wells that we encounter the most problems with bacterial contamination in. These wells are often shallow, less than 50 feet deep, without a proper well seal on top of the well or annular seal placed around the top 25’ of well casing. This means that runoff or other surface water or debris can get down into the well and contaminate the aquifer during rains. Sometimes these old wells are located too close to a septic system!

There are several things to look for to help ensure that a well is as safe as possible. The well installation should not have any cracks in the cement surrounding the well casing and should have a tight cover on it with a screened, turned down vent. There shouldn’t be any holes, gaps or cracks where anything can enter the well.

Springs can suffer from similar types of contamination as wells. Springs are usually less than a few feet deep and the spring should not collect any runoff water from rain into the spring collection box. Animals often try to get into spring boxes and can damage older spring boxes that are made of wood or have cracking cement or unfastened lids. Because springs are more susceptible to contamination, we recommend that our customers with springs check them on a regular basis and chlorinate their water or install a UV as an important stop gap in the event of a problem with the spring box. Our crew at Oakville Pump can help with your spring water too! We’ve helped many customers develop springs into viable, clean sources of water.

Many water systems have a storage tank. Old wooden storage tanks often have problems with bacterial contamination. Even new storage tanks can have problems with bacteria if they don’t have proper lids or screens to keep rodents, lizards and birds out of your water tank!

If you’d like our trained staff to look at your well or spring equipment to see if it is in good working order with the necessary precautions in place to prevent contamination, call Oakville Pump Service (707)944-2471 to have one of our staff check it!

Mineral contamination sources.

Iron, Manganese, Calcium, Magnesium, Silica, Boron…the list is extensive and can cover much of the periodic table of elements! If you read our blog on water quality, then you know the common elements that are found in our neck of the woods. How do they get there? Great Question! The water in the aquifer has been there a long time and has traveled slowly through many types of soil, clay, rock and ore. Water is an amazing natural solvent and as it travels and accumulates in underground aquifers, it dissolves some of the minerals that it comes in contact with. When you drill a well and pump the water out, those dissolved minerals come with the water.

In some cases a well driller will encounter several different aquifers as they drill down deeper and deeper. Water can be sampled from the various aquifers and then tested to see which aquifer has the best water quality. Before the drilling is completed and the well casing is installed, this aquifer can be tapped into and the other aquifers sealed off by a competent and qualified well driller like Huckfeldt Well Drilling. In some cases you are simply stuck with these minerals or you can install a filter system to remove them. Check out our blog that discusses the types of water filters for the common problems in our our area.

Sometimes the minerals in your water aren’t from your well! In several situations we have encountered very clean well water, but the old metal well casing, old metal pipes and metal storage tanks are slowly dissolving and adding lots of iron to our customer’s water. Oakville Pump Service can help you change out this old equipment and improve your water quality.

Other Contamination Sources

Other types of contamination in water include fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and other man-made chemicals. These types of contamination can occur from wells that tap into the same aquifer and it can be difficult to trace without testing many wells in the area where the contamination was detected. Fortunately these types of contamination are still rather rare in Napa County, but they can happen if chemicals are dumped or stored and then leak in proximity to a well. Another risk is for irrigation wells that do not have properly installed backflow prevention devices at points where fertilizers and other chemicals are injected into the irrigation system. If there is a failure, these chemicals can be sent down the well into the aquifer!

Whether you want to check and ensure your water is clean or clean your water up, give Oakville Pump Service a call today! (707)944-2471