Is well water safe?

Like many others in Idaho, I pump water from my own well. In my case it's located in my garage. When I took possession of this house from a family-related estate back in 1988, I was told that the water in the house had sickened the family that was living here. Hepatitis was the scare word I heard. I started buying drinking water and felt much healthier. Now that I'm on city water I realize that I may be healthier now but was wealthier then because I'm spending about $30-$40 a month for water that cost me about $10 or so every month for water in big plastic containers back then.

I still use well water for watering the lawn, and it's nice to know that if I have to, I could switch back to that source for all my water.

Since then I've learned of a variety of illness-bearing substances that reside in domestic wells. The CDC has posted a comprehensive list and an explanation of the most common of these.

My concerns are not shared by most people I know who get their drinking water from a well. "Nothin' wrong with me, and I've been drinkin' this stuff for fifty years," is a typical comment.

At a committee trying to educate well users about the risk of taking in agricultural pollutants such as nitrates, cyanide, and arsenic, I heard this one: "I've never seen a blue baby." (Blue babies are babies whose intake of nitrates has interfered with the flow of oxygen in their tiny bodies, giving them a "blue" or bluish complexion.)

The reality is, our groundwater in Idaho is threatened both in quantity and quality. If we don't pay attention, some lovely homes in suburban Idaho are going to be available at garage sale prices because a house without a decent supply of water is a house nobody wants.