High toxin levels are illegal in public water. But not for Americans using private wells. An estimated 43 million Americans get water from wells they own. Should government require them to test and treat their own water?

158

Require? No.

Offer a cheap means to test it? Yeah, that would be nice.

22

u/ramriot Sep 10 '24

I'm a renter in Canada with a well & our landlord has a regular testing schedule & shares the results with all tenants. If there is anything bad detected they offer emergency supply right away. Also you can get free testing kits in Home Depot that you mail in for a full breakdown of your water.

Having discovered this, I wonder why it would not be done everywhere.

10

u/AlexFromOgish Sep 10 '24

I bet you a nickel that the regulations set minimum testing standards and the landlord does not pay for any additional testing. Somewhere out there will be a list of common water contaminants that are missed by typical health department minimum requirements.

5

u/ramriot Sep 10 '24

Well public health Ontario offers tests for private water supplies for E. coli and total coliforms, but they don't test for other chemical contaminants. You can though get sponsored tests done independently.

Our landlord tests for the above biologicals, plus I believe Nitrates, Nitrites, Phosphates, Heavy metals, Sodium, PH, turbidity & floculates. The testing standards they quote on results are the WHO strictest requirements.

Of course other landlords may do differently ours being Parks Canada is rather more on the ball.

1

u/AlexFromOgish Sep 10 '24

Wow, if your landlord is doing that without being forced, you have a landlord to be envied

2

u/Yvaelle Sep 10 '24

It may not be regulation, it may be liability.

3

u/AlexFromOgish Sep 10 '24

Yeah, I figured. But if you have a landlord who is liability averse that means they're probably taking care of all sorts of things above and beyond what the slum lord tries to get away with down the road.,,,, lucky you!!

3

u/justanaccountname12 Sep 10 '24

Renting vs owned

2

u/ramriot Sep 10 '24

Yup, as a renter they come test for me, if I owned I'd have to collect the sample myself & get the FREE test. Turning on a tap, letting it run for a minute & collecting a sample is such a chore.

3

u/justanaccountname12 Sep 10 '24

What are you trying to imply? All I am saying is that when someone is legally responsible for someone else's safety, they tend to care more. We all make decisions every day if something is worth the risk or not.
That being said, my water is fine to drink, pathogen wise. But as hard as seawater. Works well if you need to loosen up the bowels, just like mineral water.

5

u/_trouble_every_day_ Sep 10 '24

Do these people have children? potentially? Then yes, it should be required.

3

u/clorox2 Sep 10 '24

Don’t they? I’ve tested tap water free in both NYC and VA.

1

u/kurttheflirt Sep 10 '24

I can tell you it is not free in Michigan.

1

u/Sacrificial_Salt Sep 10 '24

It's usually pretty cheap through a county health dept.

0

u/humanbeing21 Sep 10 '24 edited Sep 11 '24

Agreed. I think education, encouragement and assistance would be better than mandates

1

u/booi Sep 10 '24

Children don’t get to choose parents who test their water. People are too horrible to leave this to chance. 100% should be free and required to test.

1

u/humanbeing21 Sep 11 '24

I'm all for free testing, but not sure we need new regulations for well water. People have selfish motivation to have safe drinking water. If given education and free ways to test and fix, the vast majority of people would take advantage of it. Once, you pass regulations then you have to add more bureaucracy to enforce those regulations in every home in America. A tough thing to do. Child protection services should be able to consider water quality as another factor when evaluating neglect though

33

u/AlexFromOgish Sep 10 '24

Require it, but make it free.

it is a lot less expensive to use taxpayer money to monitor private wells to prevent toxin-related medical problems than using taxpayer money for disability and medical expenses after polluted water has done its preventable damage.

4

u/nova_rock Sep 10 '24

Have an office of potable water paid for by all of us that helps all of us, the mechanism for testing and providing ways to make your water better can be whoever makes sense in different places.

1

u/AlexFromOgish Sep 10 '24

Yep, just like the way we crowdsource funding for fire and rescue, police, snowplows, highways..... all sorts of ways our lives are better by requiring everyone to pitch in a little, to ensure the neighborhood is a place that enriches our lives, safely.

-4

u/Spaghettidan Sep 10 '24

I don’t think anyone should be required to do something on their own private land. It’s their land, their choice on what they want to consume

4

u/xesttub Sep 10 '24

If people didn’t have kids I think this is reasonable. But we can’t poison kids because their parents love freedom more than common sense.

4

u/cowlinator Sep 10 '24

I don’t think anyone should be required to do something on their own private land.

They already are. Parents are already legally required to not allow their children to consume toxins. This just provides a way to enforce that.

1

u/nova_rock Sep 10 '24

I’m going to setup my own garbage furnace on my private land

1

u/Spaghettidan Sep 10 '24

Well that’s different. That emits fumes which other people not on your land breathe In. A well is personal use.

3

u/AlexFromOgish Sep 10 '24

Air moves across property lines.... so does water as it mixes in the porous geologic layers that make up your water table. Its no different.

1

u/Dhiox Sep 10 '24

Right, and then what happens when our public resources are spent saving their life? Or nursing them back to care? Or dealing with those reprocussions in their old age?

And what if they have children?

1

u/AlexFromOgish Sep 10 '24

Sure, a lot of privileged narcissists want utter freedom to do whatever the hell they want on their own property as long as the jerk down the street doesn’t ruin the neighborhood and as long as the taxpayer is always on call to bail out the freedom-loving narcissist when their own poor choices come back to haunt them.

Ironically, the same sort of person also complains about all kinds of social service programs, until they themselves are the one in need; and when the jerk down the road starts to ruin the neighborhood, this is the person who shows up at city Council asking for an ordinance to keep that guy from doing what they’re doing on their land

1

u/Spaghettidan Sep 10 '24

I stopped reading at privileged narcissists. If you care about getting a point across don’t start with insults.

0

u/AlexFromOgish Sep 10 '24

People who think ANYTHING GOES on private property aren't going to change their minds anyway

0

u/Spaghettidan Sep 11 '24

I’m very open to changing my mind on anything. I just need good reasons and evidence. Anyways this post is now a mess, have a good life ✌️

1

u/AlexFromOgish Sep 11 '24

only if its in-your-face to your own privileged narcissistic advantage, it seems. And so we have come full circle. Bye

0

u/AlexFromOgish Sep 10 '24

“ I don’t think anyone should be required to do something on their own private land”

Should we be required to secure our property against meth labs, or organized crime body disposal? If you say yes, water testing of the well is an extension of keeping our property secure against criminal activity, such as illegal hazardous waste dumping.

10

u/epilogued Sep 10 '24

Considering they played a part in allowing the toxins to contaminate the ground water from which these wells are sourced, I think it’s pretty shitty to just leave it to the owner to “figure it out” or worse, force them to or face penalties. I think the govt should go after the companies that have poisoned americas water and force them to pay for the clean up, though the cost of doing so is so astronomical it would bankrupt the combined wealth of these companies. But they didn’t care because they knew they would never have to face that consequence.

4

u/internetALLTHETHINGS Sep 10 '24

As someone living in a rural area with a private well, the first time we became aware that there were PFAS issues in our local water system that we should be concerned about was when our local elementary school sent home a notice that the kids can't drink out of the water fountains at school anymore.

I guess there are a few idiot libertarians who don't want to be told not to drink toxins, but for most private citizens, they don't want to be exposing themselves or their children to toxins. We would love for the local government to inform us of the need for testing various chemicals in our water supply. It would be even better if there was a cheaper, subsidized means of doing regular testing too. It can be hundreds of dollars to get the testing done each time.

5

u/calguy1955 Sep 10 '24

Maybe the local health depts could set up a program that allows people to bring in samples for testing voluntarily for a small fee to cover the cost. Not mandatory.

1

u/WanderingFlumph Sep 10 '24

Do it by mail and it'll likely be much more efficient. Charge for the postage but not the test so it'll cost only a few bucks

1

u/DroopyMcCool Sep 11 '24

I've got over 10 years in the water industry. I would not trust the average homeowner to collect, pack, and ship a sample. Whenever we meeded.to get a sample from a customer's home, we would send a tech out to collect.

0

u/calguy1955 Sep 10 '24

Sorry, but why should the rest of us pay for testing private water wells?

1

u/silence7 Sep 10 '24

Definitely better than nothing, but needs to have a PR campaign to make sure people actually do it.

3

u/[deleted] Sep 10 '24

Considering most people don't live alone and usually one person is responsible for the well I'd say it would be criminal not to do it.

2

u/Evaderofdoom Sep 10 '24

Well water has always freaked me out. How do you know what's in unless you test and test often. LIke just cause it tested clean 10 years ago doesn't mean it's still clean today.

1

u/cancerdad Sep 10 '24

Where I live the people with well water would refuse to have it tested because they hate all government. They would rather drink toxins than submit to a government testing program.

1

u/LockInfinite8682 Sep 10 '24

I have been required to test my private well. The test was required by the health department for starting a new well and when selling a home. My test was for e coli though.

1

u/silence7 Sep 10 '24

Yeah, depending on where you are, you might want to test for an assortment of other things, including industrial pollutants, arsenic, and other potential contaminants.

1

u/drizdar Sep 10 '24

Ideally what needs to happen is a mass testing event of all private wells in areas known to have contaminants of concern/water quality issues in their groundwater. This info should then be fed to the federal government to calculate the cost of remediation, which would then be allocated in the form of grants/bonds to local utilities/homeowners based on the least cost viable option (either well remediation for private wells, or connect to municipal system) through state revolving funds. I think there would be a lot of benefit from doing this, and also a lot of work that will open up in rural areas.

1

u/BillyBillings50Filln Sep 11 '24

Free testing is a great place to start

1

u/Berkamin Sep 11 '24

People who have private wells will resist the government telling them to do this even if it is for their own safety. But if private insurance companies require this to cover them for anything that could be caused by polluted water, they can’t complain.

1

u/notacanuckskibum Sep 11 '24

Are you willing to send people to prison, or fine poor people more than they afford to achieve this?

1

u/carterartist Sep 11 '24

I’m guessing almost all those wells are in red counties…

So I say no. They have said many times they don’t want government regulations out handouts.

1

u/carterartist Sep 11 '24

But seriously, I would support both.

1

u/Accurate_Gap_6069 Sep 11 '24

Another way to tax and burden the average person.

1

u/patagonian_pegasus Sep 10 '24

Where’s the toxins coming from?

8

u/uglyinspanish Sep 10 '24

underground storage tanks, chemical spills, general pollution

1

u/carterartist Sep 11 '24

Some are natural

3

u/Gengaara Sep 10 '24

Probably depends on locality. Farming communities get their water nuked by absurd levels of fertilizer and pesticide application.

3

u/[deleted] Sep 10 '24

Aresnic is naturally occuring in aquifers. It is not rare in wellwater in many states in the US.

2

u/hollylettuce Sep 10 '24

Theres a lot of sources people are being kind of melodramatic in these comments. Sometimes well water doesn't pass a chemical test because of polition from industrial waste, fertilizers, and mining, etc. Sometimes its as mundane as you are a farmer and you have cows and that cow manure gets in the soil. Sometimes its just an accident of geography, where you just happen to have built a home on land with a high mineral content thats not the best to consume.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 10 '24

in SoCal? we have toxic plumes in our aquifers everywhere there was rocket and defense development and testing

1

u/hollylettuce Sep 10 '24

Please, no. I have a well and would prefer not to have to rely on a cistern and pay for water to be brought in just because the government arbitrarily made the acceptable mineral content for well water stricter.

I don't drink my water, and most people with well water in the US do not drink the water from their wells. We use it for bathing, washing, and everything else except for drinking. City water is not an option where I live.

-6

u/AlexFromOgish Sep 10 '24 edited Sep 10 '24

If you get cancer from your water don’t expect the taxpayer to pay for your care or disability, just because you stayed intentionally ignorant about the carcinogens in your water.

EDIT to add..... Why on earth are folks doing driveby downvoting? Show some gumption and friggin' explain your criticisms, will ya? Who knows? Maybe I'll learn something or look at this in a new way.

0

u/daftbucket Sep 11 '24

A) You won't get cancer from water you're not drinking.

B) The last thing my generation needs is another hard barrier to home ownership enforced under the assumption that we are too lazy or stupid to figure out how not to kill ourselves.

C) any time the government forces [insert thing], some big ass corporation monopolizes the entire industry and fucks everyone in the ass over it because it turns into free money. The people thrive when the government stays out of our wallets, our homes, our genitals, and our fucking water supply. The reason your medical expenses are so steep is because the government gave way to corporations and insurance companies there too. Let me dig my well and filter my own goddamned water, if I get municipal water I'm probably going to filter it anyways.

Seriously, just get an RO filter (and remineralizer) and jam it up under your kitchen and bathroom sinks. Done. No more cancer.

1

u/AlexFromOgish Sep 11 '24

Would you consent to mandatory Wellwater testing unless you can prove you have a properly installed and maintained reverse osmosis filter?

If you say no, then you’re arguing ideology rather than practical reasoning

0

u/daftbucket Sep 11 '24

My primary idealogy is financial.

Again, the second you sign this into law, all filter component prices are gouged by corporations.

Then I gotta pay some Nanny State douchebag to come in and wipe my ass, or else I have to prove to that I bought their overpriced horseshit so what... I don't get have to give to the government so they can better enforce their money making schemes?

Oh, and by the way, the people who will be in charge of enforcing this will u n d o u b t e d l y be hired straight out of the industries that benefit most from stacking the deck - which is how all regulatory agencies work.

On principle though, yeah... I'm not willfully consenting to paying a nanny state to force their way into my home to make sure im wiping my ass properly.

0

u/AlexFromOgish Sep 11 '24

I was reading up until "nanny state douchebag"....... with that turn of phrase its obvious you're not here to discuss and evolve in your thinking on these issues.

0

u/daftbucket Sep 11 '24

You're proposing imposing your expensive worldview on others and you got your feelings hurt? Unfortunate.

What you are proposing is to shove more intrusive government up my ass with no benefit to me - no thank you.

0

u/AlexFromOgish Sep 11 '24

"nanny state douchebag" you say??????????? I couldn't care less about what else you have to add or what ad hominem attacks you feebly lob.

1

u/daftbucket Sep 11 '24

I'm not insulting you. I'm insulting inspectors and tax collectors. And for good reason: fuck 'em.

You seem to have reasonable motives, I respect you.

I just disagree with what you have proposed vehemently.

1

u/AlexFromOgish Sep 11 '24

If you have to say "I'm not insulting you", then you're not really doing two-way communication. Bye.

0

u/evil_burrito Sep 10 '24

Wells are commonly tested by the seller when selling the property.

Obviously, more frequent testing would probably be better, but, it's still pretty commonly done.

3

u/hollylettuce Sep 10 '24

Its also something a plumber will do for you during an estimate and drinking test kits appear to be about 20 to 30 dollars on amazon? I feel like the people in this thread have never actually tested their water or experienced what its like to have a well and maintain it. :/

1

u/evil_burrito Sep 10 '24

Agreed, really not that difficult.

We were mostly concerned with bacteria, but the send-away tests covered heavy metals, etc.

-3

u/Spaghettidan Sep 10 '24

No it’s a free country. Make water purification cheap but not mandatory. Maybe eliminate tariffs on purification products or tax free or subsidized depending on the system..

High toxin levels are illegal in public water. But not for Americans using private wells. An estimated 43 million Americans get water from wells they own. Should government require them to test and treat their own water?

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