WATER SUPPLY:

Well, drilled or dug:
Dependable, refreshing and adequate supplies of drinking and washing water may be supplied by either a drilled or dug well. The later must often be less than 20 feet in depth, and, due to the size of the hole in order to accommodate the digging person --- must be cased. That is, a concrete or wood liner is often necessary to prevent the sides of the well from collapsing. Finding water depends upon finding an aquifer --- sometimes referred to as an underground river --- reaching it, and extracting from it.

Aquifers
These are like gravel beds in which water collects after percolating its way down through the soil from the land surface. They are often incorrectly described as underground rivers. The water follows the contour of the bedrock to create a flow and some degree of pressure. Aquifers can travel for hundreds of miles with widths spanning anywhere from less than 1 foot to over 30 feet. They can have feeding branches and divide into tributaries. Adjacent aquifers may be 10 feet or 10 miles distant.

Simply drilling a hole does not guarantee a source of water.
Aquifers may also cross one another at differing depths. The quality of water in each of such is likely to differ also. Drilling to a deeper aquifer does not guarantee better quality and higher flow rates of water. Groundwater purity depends upon whether it is free of sand, hydrogen sulfide (rotten egg) gas, and pollutants. Much of this quality depends on where the water originated and through what kind of soil structures it has flowed.

Volcanic origin bedrock:
Hydrogen sulfide is a frequent chemical dissolved into the water from this kind of rock. While such water has a nauseating odor, it is generally safe to drink and may provide a gentle laxative effect. Aeration tanks and special filters can also be used to remove the hydrogen sulfide.

A rust-colored contaminate, often referred to as "iron" and assumed to be iron oxide --- may be present from other bedrock. It is a fungus which feeds on the high mineral content of the water. It quickly coats anything into which the water is poured, sprayed or stored. It is largely harmless to human health and imparts little taste or odor to the water. Over long periods of consumption, the high mineral content may imbalance the health of an individual and promote softer-than-usual tooth structure.

SAND CAN BECOME A PROBLEM when the bed through which the groundwater is flowing is more sand than gravel in composition. It may become impossible to obtain any water which does not remain clouded with sediment and fine sand for over an hour of settling. Filters are commonly used for such a problem. Frequent cleaning of the filters is often necessary. Whatever the natural contaminates may be, they usually pose little harm to human health and can be removed with moderate expense.

Agricultural Runoff:
Groundwater can be and frequently has been polluted by surface runoff water. Agricultural sources include excess applications of chemical fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides and fungicides. In addition, improperly contained sewage effluent from cattle farms and poorly designed residential septic tanks can add endangering bacteria to the water. With the inherent difficulties of finding adequate groundwater of desired quality without contamination, municipal water supplies are often attractive services.

ALL USA AQUIFERS have been contaminated with complex and toxic chemicals and/or harmful bacteria. After decades of ridicule and pseudo-scientific rejection of dowsing techniques in determining groundwater locations for drilling, consistent success rates well beyond other conventional techniques now support the use of DOWSING.

A skilled dowser can often tell the depth, size of flow and QUALITY of the water in an aquifer BEFORE the drill enters the soil.

Cistern:
When surface water is collected, it is often stored in covered concrete containers called cisterns. This is often rainwater runoff from a roof and will contain any degradation materials from the roofing as well as any contaminates which have settled on the roof from local air pollution.

MILDEW and MOULD can become a potential difficulty within the cistern itself. If the cistern is not kept full much of the time, cleaned periodically, is not too tight and has screened inlets to prevent rodent and other mishaps (accidental entry, drowning and decay) --- such waters can become unhealthy for even temporary emergency use. If precautions are taken, maintenance maintained and roofing and cistern finishes carefully chosen, a cistern can be a valued and dependable source of water for bathing, laundry and even drinking.

Municipal:
By the beginning of the twentieth century large concentrations of people into cities required mass treatment of public water supplies in order to prevent recurrent epidemics. The most often water treatment chosen was chlorination. This is comparable to adding a small amount of household Javex bleach to your drinking water. Chlorination was effective in greatly reducing bacteria counts and preventing water mains from producing bacteria and fungi colonies.

THE ECOLOGICAL CHALLENGE OF POPULATION DENSITY was ignored and what was an effective short-term remedy became a long-term hazard. As time has passed, chlorinated wastewater from toilets, showers, baths, laundry and dish washing, lawn sprinklers, and dishwashers --- has been returned by way of sewage treatment systems, runoff, and soil percolation to the sources used by the municipalities. Those sources of municipal water (lakes, rivers, groundwater, reservoirs) have all become contaminated with complex molecule chemicals.

For decades, runoff and industrially dumped chemicals have been combining with chlorine in municipal waste water to produce toxic byproducts which produce health imbalances. These chlorinated chemicals are usually present in small quantities and, for lack of any mass application as an alternative chlorination must be continued.

PURIFICATION of one's personal water supply is an option for the health conscious or environmentally sensitive person. A combination of activated charcoal filtration together with distillation provides much improved municipal sourced water. Ozone and/or ultraviolet irradiation is effective in killing still active harmful bacteria --- now resistant to chlorination.

CHLORINATED WATER is disliked by the human body --- which makes carbonated or hot beverages a more attractive option. The costs involved with filtration and distillation are easily offset by the savings gained from reducing one's reliance on other fluids which often contain large amounts of sugars (calories), caffeine (drug), and synthetic chemicals for flavoring, coloring, and artificial sweetening (toxic cocktail).

Transported:
When we must truck water from a distance to put into our well or cistern we are at the mercy of the professionalism of the driver-supplier and the quality of the source. Truck tanks, hoses, connections and the driver's hands and clothing must be regularly cleaned if bacterial and fungal contamination are to be avoided. While all of these tasks can be done, the end user has no means of confirming that any such procedures have been followed.

Know your operator and test the water.
As a crude test for organic material in water --- take an ounce of water in a clean glass container and add several crystals of potassium permanganate. If the water changes color from purple to orange, the water is definitely contaminated. Discard the sample carefully as the permanganate is poisonous.

REMEMBER THIS:
Be aware.
The problems you have may not come from within the people around you, or, from within yourself. Take a long vacation to a (hopefully) cleaner environment (not in the continental USA, Europe, or Asia) and see if the problem is your relationship or your environment. A relationship can be for a lifetime ... a job, career, and specific home address seldom are. Pick your priority carefully.