Matt Damon and the 2012 film “The Promised Land” was a story about it. The Rolling Stones song “Doom and Gloom” is a song about it. And voters in Colorado and Ohio have weighed in on it. Lot of attention but nobody has the answer to the question to frack or not to frack?
“It’s a very complex subject,” said Sharon Anderson, environmental program leader for Cornell University Cooperative Extension. “The answer depends on a person’s role. For example, if …
Jeppe “Yebbe” Kjaersgaard currently serves as the chair of the Drinking Water and Human Health Community of Practice. He is an assistant professor at the South Dakota Water Resources Institute at South Dakota State University. His interests include water protection, water analysis report interpretation, developing new technologies for on-farm water management to sustain profitability while addressing environmental concerns, and monitoring of water quality using remote sensing and ground-based equipment. He serves as a co-coordinator of the annual Big …
If you look beneath the surface of the landscape, you will find a complex mixture of rock, gravel, sand or finer-grained material that makes up areas where water can be stored in pore spaces. Gravity causes rainwater or melted snow to move down into the empty spaces in between the soil or cracks in the rock. Eventually the water reaches the saturated zone. In the saturated zone all the void spaces are completely filled with water; the water in the …
Wherever you live, if you drink from a private well, get your water tested
Arsenic: colorless, tasteless, odorless, ubiquitous in nature, a favored homicidal agent since the first century. A naturally occurring element, arsenic exists in rocks and soils throughout the world.
In arsenic “hot spots,” natural processes can cause the toxic element to migrate into the water people tap for household wells. Exposure to arsenic through drinking water is linked to reduced immune function, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, …
The only way to reduce the risk of your drinking water well going dry during a drought period is to get it deepened, especially if other local wells are pumping from the same water source. In addition, water conservation measures could reduce the likelihood of your well going dry.…
Coliforms are not one kind of bacteria, but many, and they can make you sick if ingested from drinking water. But most coliforms are harmless residents of soil and will not make people sick. Some strains of E. coli, the most common fecal coliform bacterium (usually living in animal fecal material) may cause disease. Some E. coli strains found in food have been lethal. Their presence should be taken very seriously.
Your immune system also determines whether on not …
Nuisance organisms in drinking water are those that are not pathogenic (disease causing) but cause other types of problems related to aesthetics (color, taste, odor) and corrosion or plugging of pumps, wells and distribution systems. Two common nuisance organisms in ground water are iron bacteria and sulfur bacteria. Two common nuisance organisms in surface water are algae and zebra mussels.…
The major source of pollution in drinking water sources is rainwater that flows into street catch basins (called urban runoff or stormwater runoff). While this rainwater alone is not necessarily harmful, it frequently carries untreated waste products from our streets and yards directly into rivers, streams, and lakes — our drinking water sources.
Other potential sources of drinking water pollution are products that are flushed through the sewer system, not removed by waste treatment, and then passed back into our …
A toilet will normally use about 2-3 gallons per minute (gpm), a shower from 1.5 to 3.0 gpm, a bathroom or kitchen faucet from 2-3 gpm, a dishwasher from 2-4 gpm, and a washing machine from 3-5 gpm. When you start running more than one fixture (sink/dishwasher/toilet/etc.) at a time, the gallons per minute add up quickly. If you have a water softener or a special water treatment unit that restricts flow, you may see a pressure drop when several …
The table below outlines information on specific home water treatment approaches. Keep in mind that some water treatment can be for aesthetic as well as health factors. If drinking water poses a health risk, the consumer may also consider the cost of purchasing bottled water or tying into a public water system if available as an alternative to treatment.
If you need to contact a water treatment professional to install or repair a home treatment system or to assess a …
