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.

Siphoning water to the aquifer

A grand project to prevent hard feelings between surface and ground water users in Western Idaho from escalating further has been successful so far, according to today's report in the Idaho Statesman.

The Idaho Department of Water Resources was able to divert storage water north of the Snake River in the Magic Valley into the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer. Half a million dollars from industrial sources including the Idaho Dairymen's Association gave them the right to lease the water instead of seeing their water pumps turned off.

The issue of course, is how to keep water-dependent industries alive with aquifer water and not violate laws that give the senior holders of surface water the first right to the water.

The aquifer was able to absorb 91 percent of the 29,500 acre-feet of water that ran through the canal between October 1 when the irrigation season ended and November 30 when cold weather set in. The courts will be involved again before this all settles down, if it ever does.

Who put the arsenic in our water?

Shawn Benner, PhD

Today I attended an interesting illustrated lecture about arsenic in ground water in Canyon County, where I live in Idaho. The speaker was Shawn Benner, Ph.D., assistant professor for the Department of Geosciences at Boise State University.

The maps he projected on the screen were compelling. In the area bounded by the Snake River, the Boise River, and the line between Canyon and Ada Counties, colored marks indicated arsenic pollution spread out over the whole area but especially the area immediately to the west of Caldwell.

In 1999 the highest level of arsenic acceptable in our drinking water was lowered from 50 parts per billion to 10 parts per billion. The levels were set because of observations linking an increased risk of cancer among people to their exposure to higher levels of arsenic. This brought dozens of wells in this part of the Boise basin into non-compliance with the Environmental Protection Agency.

Actually, Dr. Benner said, the evidence is overwhelming that it should be even lower, but the heightened risk was weighed against the cost of compliance, and the standard remains at 10 ppb.

How does arsenic get into our water?

Scientists don't know. They know that contamination is widespread throughout the area. They also know that it is "naturally" occurring and not the result of "dumping" or "mixing" arsenic compounds into our groundwater. Analysis indicates that arsenic levels are highest in the shallowest wells.

But where does it come from?

Dr. Benner and a formidable team of scientists and students are digging out the facts. They suspect that "surficial sediments" are a major source of arsenic in its mobile form. Arsenic that readily mobilizes is also common in shallow oxide-rich layers of soil and gravel.

So now I'm thinking...Maybe I should just write a book for the ordinary person about arsenic!

I've written to Dr. Benner expressing an interest in the subject. We'll see...

On a Collision Course

Idaho Power wants an 84-year-old agreement restored so they can use their "fair" share of water to generate electricity. The state's largest utility claims the agreement has been violated every year since 2001 and has filed a lawsuit in the Ninth U.S. District Court against the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Reclamation.

Idaho's gift of hot water

It's a big mystery why Idaho uses so much water and yet is a bone-dry desert state. Just as mysterious is the wealth of geothermal energy in our state.

One of my favorite Idaho writers is Arthur Hart, a historian and scholar. Today's Idaho Statesman posted Hart's fascinating account of hot water in Boise through the years.
In this story you will learn—

• About a resort featuring hot and cold water that opened in 1890 in Boise
• The dust-settling qualities of water sprinklers on Warm Springs Avenue in the 19th century
  
• The location of the first home in Boise heated entirely by hot water from underground springs
  
• Why early residents of Boise anticipated the day when all of the energy needs of the city would be met by natural hot water beneath its moorings

Don't miss this coverage!

Water and Sand

The speaker at today's water presentation sponsored by the University of Idaho was Professor, V. Sridhar, Ph.D., P.E., from BSU. I didn't take my program with me and was amused to hear one of the class members in another venue (it is transmitted live to four other sites in Idaho) call him by name. I thought he was saying "Dear Sweetheart."

Anyway, most of his talk concerned the "Sand Hills of Nebraska," although he did talk a bit about nature's balancing act with energy and water.


He and his colleagues have calculated the direction the sand dunes of Nebraska would take if wind directions changed a bit. I thought it was interesting that winds blowing north to south, or vice versa, are warmer than winds blowing east to west or the reverse. Most of the Nebraska area of sand supports a few inches of grass and doesn't reveal the thousands of tons of sand below or the precarious situation of that little bit of topsoil. He had praise for an organization known as the "Sandhills Taskforce," a group of volunteers trying to maintain a healthy system of farms and ranches that rely on grassy terrain for optimal grazing.

Idaho Rivers United: A First Look

I have a feeling I'll be hearing more about Idaho Rivers United from here on. The city hall for Garden City is off Glenwood on Marigold. I think the best way to get there is from the Eagle exchange on the freeway, definitely not from downtown Boise!

Susan Stacy, the author of When the River Rises, was present and received accolades for her book about the history of the Boise River. In 1962-63, the river was so polluted that it smelled bad. Really bad. The cheapest homes were by the river, and nobody wanted to live there.

The Clean Water Act was first known as the Federal Water Pollution Control Act and was established in 1948. With various amendments, in 1966 it became The Clean Water Pollution Control Act, and in 1977 it became the Clean Water Act (CWA). (For a brief look at the history of the CWA, go to the Website maintained by The Bureau of Land Management.)

Some points I learned:

• Storm water runoff is also ruled by the permit process.
  
• Run a pipe into the river, and it is covered by discharge permit rules.
• The Boise River in and near the city supports more recreation any other river space in the state.
• Because of scant water flows, the black cottonwood is being replaced in the Boise River by the silver maple, an import from New England.
• The black cottonwood supports nesting birds because it has strong roots and stays upright when it dies or is blown over.
• The silver maple falls over into the river and doesn't encourage nesting.
• The result of the above two points: Less black cottonwood means a lower bird population as well as fewer insects to provide food for the birds and small animals along the river.
• Elected officials are much easier to reach and talk to about your water concerns than are business owners. That's their job.
• Just point out what is happening and why and ask a simple question: "This is the road we're going down. Are you sure it's the one you want to take?"

I signed up as a potential volunteer. I suspect I'll hear from them again.