IowaWatch (https://www.iowawatch.org/tag/shelby-county/)
An IowaWatch report told how the Iowans drinking water from private wells may not know what is in their water because their wells’ water quality is unregulated. Yet, some well owners were not concerned about it. Iowans tell how they cope in this IowaWatch Connection podcast.
Many Iowans may not know what is in their water because their wells’ water quality is unregulated. But many of them with whom IowaWatch spoke with this past year said they largely were unconcerned about their wells that had high levels of nitrates and bacteria.
But sometimes southwest Iowans don’t take action to clean their drinking water supply even when they test their private wells and find unsafe water.
The most recent statewide study of Iowa’s private wells, the Iowa Statewide Rural Well Water Survey Phase 2, found that nearly half of wells had detectible levels of nitrogen, bacteria or arsenic.
Testing on private wells through the Iowa’s Grants to Counties program is recorded in a Private Well Tracking System database maintained by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. The database, in use since 2003, also includes information about things like well depth, age, location and construction, when it is known.
Many Iowans may not know what is in their water because their wells’ water quality is unregulated. Moreover, many well owners IowaWatch spoke with during an investigation this past year in counties across southwest Iowa said they largely were unconcerned about their wells, even though tests revealed high levels of nitrates and bacteria in some of their wells.
Iowa law does not require well water quality to meet any drinking water standards but wells fall under a handful of different regulations.
A consumer information booklet produced by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources lists potential contaminants that include nitrate, bacteria, sulfur, fluoride, arsenic, lead and radionuclides, which are carcinogenic radioactive elements that occur as uranium and thorium isotopes decay.