Home Testing Kits

How Safe Is Your Water?

Not worried about your water?  You should be.  This five part video series on the safety of the American water supply highlights how over 500,000 companies have violated EPA regulations when it comes to dumping pollution into our water since 2004.  Fewer than 3% of these companies have ever been fined or charged.

How Safe Is Your Water? Part 2

How Safe Is Your Water? Part 3

How Safe Is Your Water? Part 4

How Safe Is Your Water? Part 5

You need a well water testing kit if you get your drinking water from a groundwater source.  Just click on the link to buy your water testing kit today.

If you would like more information on well water testing kits or any other type of home testing kit,  please click on this link.

For the Coles Notes version of this New York Times report, you can watch this shorter video: US Tainted Water – New York Times Report

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Beaver Fever

Untreated well water can harbor the protozoan giardiasis lamblia, commonly known as beaver fever.  This video describes how children or adults can be infected from well water or other water supplies contaminated with infected feces (stool/droppings), and then continue to pass the infection on to other children.

Interestingly, giardiasis is often found in dogs so be sure to wash your hands well after doing the “poop and scoop” maneuver.

Symptoms include diarrhea, weight loss, loss of appetite.

The following is taken from the CDC (Center for Disease Control) website.

If my water comes from a well, should I have my well water tested?

It depends. You should consider having your well water tested if you can answer “yes” to any of the following questions:

• Are members of your family or others who use your well water becoming ill? If yes, your well may be the source of infection.

• Is your well located at the bottom of a hill or is it considered shallow? If so, runoff from rain or flood water may be draining directly into your well and causing contamination.

• Is your well in a rural area where animals graze? Well water can become contaminated with feces if animal waste seepage contaminates the ground water. This can occur if your well has cracked casings, is poorly constructed, or is too shallow.

Tests used to specifically identify Giardia are expensive, difficult, and usually require hundreds of gallons of water to be pumped through a filter. If you answered “yes” to the above questions, consider testing your well for fecal contamination by testing it for the presence of coliforms or E. coli instead of Giardia. Although tests for fecal coliforms or E. coli do not specifically tell you whether Giardia is present, these tests might show whether your well water has been contaminated by feces. For more information on other germs and chemicals that can contaminate well water, see Contaminants in Well Water.

These tests are only useful if your well is not routinely disinfected with chlorine, since chlorine kills fecal coliforms and E. coli. If the tests are positive, it is possible that the water may also be contaminated with Giardia or other harmful parasites, bacteria and viruses. Contact your local health department or your county cooperative extension service to find out who offers water testing in your area. For information on well testing, see Well Water Testing Frequently Asked Questions. If the fecal coliform test comes back positive, indicating that your well is fecally contaminated, stop drinking the well water and contact your local water authority for instructions on how to disinfect your well.

Click here today to order your well water testing kits for fecal coliform in your well water supply.

You can find out more about water testing kits or other home testing kits available online by clicking on this link.

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Hazards from Water Contamination

A long (45 minutes plus) educational course on three case studies on the hazards of water contamination.  This video from the Environmental Protection Agency is primarily directed at doctors and other health professionals.  Despite that slant, anyone can learn about how water supplies are contaminated, what are the most common contaminants in your water, how can you test and treat contaminated water, and a list of resources.

As I’ve mentioned before, rural water supplies are far more likely to be polluted with e coli, pesticides, herbicides and fertilizer run-off.  If you get your drinking water from a well in a rural area, it is vital that you test your water regularly.

To order a water test kit, Go to Well Water Testing Kits now.

For more information on well water testing kits or other types of home testing kits, please click on this link.

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If you live in a rural area and get your drinking water from a well, there is no doubt you need to use well water testing kits on a regular basis.  In previous posts, I’ve pointed out the most obvious sources of groundwater contamination in rural areas: sewage, pesticides, herbicides and fertilizer run-off from industrial agriculture operations.

But I neglected to mention that we often contribute to water pollution by our casual use of shallow drains at home and at work.  Urban areas have water treatment plants that can handle this kind of pollution.  But rural areas serviced by well water do not.

The following video from the Environmental Protection Agency shows the magnitude of the problem.

If you haven’t yet ordered your well water testing kits, click here now.

For more information on well water testing kits or other types of home testing kits available online, please click on this link.

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Watersafe Instant Water Testing Kit

I can’t say it strongly enough.   If your drinking water supply comes from a well, you need to use a well water testing kit. If you’re on a well or artesian water supply, you most likely live in one of the most dangerous places in North America – rural farmland!

We no longer live in the era of Sunnybrook Farm.  Perhaps we never did.  But it would be foolish to believe that modern mass industrial agricultural methods do not produce huge amounts of waste in the form of sewage sludge from animal operations, pesticide and herbicide run-off, and fertilizer contamination.

Where do these waste materials go?  Well, apart from the methane from animal operations that goes into the atmosphere, a lot of the manure, pesticides, weed killer and excess nitrates and nitrites from fertilizer applications end up in your water supply.  Once these contaminants enter the groundwater, it’s a short trip to your well water supply.

Make no mistake – this pollution has serious consequences for your health.  The manure from industrial cattle operations is heavily contaminated with e-coli.  In fact, feed lot operations use corn to fatten the cattle before they go to market.  Cattle do not eat corn naturally (”corn fed” is a marketing ploy) but when they do, the acidity of their digestive system changes so that e coli bacteria thrive.  And not just any e coli, but a specific variant that has caused deadly infections in humans.  If cattle were allowed to graze on grass for the last two weeks of their lives, it is believed that this dangerous form of e coli bacteria could be eliminated.  Unfortunately, subsidized corn is so cheap, that most feedlots do not bother.

Here’s a video that gives some background on the size of the problem.  While I don’t agree with the vegan message, we are discussing the pollution issues here.

That’s just sewage.  There is also concern about pesticides and herbicides.  Tons of these dangerous products are sprayed and dusted on our crops.  Much of it blows away or is washed away with the next rain into our rivers and streams.  If you live in an agricultural area, your well water is at risk.

Click here now to order your own well water testing kit.

Click here for more information on well water testing kits or other home testing kits.

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If you live in a rural area and get your drinking water from wells or rivers, you need to use water testing kits for bacteria on a regular basis.

The Center for Disease Control has estimated that more than 40% of wells are contaminated with fecal matter in the form of coliform bacteria, as well as nitrates from fertilizer and animal waste runoff.  E. coli bacteria sicken and kill thousands of people each year because of contaminated water supplies.  Rural areas are especially hard hit as they often have no other source of water other than wells.  Regular government testing of the groundwater supply that feeds your well is haphazard at best, if done at all.  The sad truth is there are not enough voters left in the countryside to make much of a difference to your elected officials.  You need to take control of your own water testing for the sake of your family and yourself.

There are several water testing kits for bacteria on the market.  The only real difference between them is the option to do additional testing for nitrates and other chemicals that may be contaminating your water supply.  If you suspect that other pollutants may be impacting the quality of your well water, you should definitely go for the more comprehensive tests.  Otherwise, the simplest water testing kit to test for bacteria is TestCountry’s Bacteria in Water Testing Kit.

This is a simple petri dish kit.  You put a sample of the water on the dish, let it incubate for 48 hours and then count the colonies of bacteria that have grown.  (Reminds be a biology class in highschool!)  The instructions look intimidating, but just follow them step by step for accurate results.

There are two other water testing kits that test for bacteria as well as other contaminants.

The Watersafe Instant Water Testing Kit information says, “Even clear good tasting water may contain bacteria, lead nitrates, nitrites, iron, Pesticides, Chlorine, arsenic Atrizine, Simazine, Cyanazine, Propazine, Simetryn, Prometryn, Desethyl Atrazine, Atraton, Desisopropyl Atrazine, Tertbuthylazine, Ametryn, 2-Hydroxy Atrazine and numerous other chemicals known to be dangerous to your health and wellness. Many go undetected until it is too late.”

Unfortunately, I can’t tell if this test actually tests for all those chemicals.  I also wasn’t able to find test procedures so this is not my recommended water testing kit.

The price is slightly more than the first test, but if you’re like me, I prefer to have a lot of information before I make any purchase over the net, so I wouldn’t buy this one.

The third and most expensive water testing kit does a lot more than just bacterial testing.  But you’re also paying almost four times the cost.  But here’s what the test      includes:

“1 bacteria water test, 1 lead water test, 1 pesticide water test, 2 iron water test, 2 hardness water test, 2 pH water test, 2 alkalinity water test, 2 copper water test, 2 chlorine water test, 2 nitrate water test, 2 nitrite water test, 1 water test results sheet, 1 basic water knowledge information book”

If you’re living near a feedlot operation, a pig farm, or even just a large agricultural operation that isn’t “organic”, this is probably the test for you.  I’m tempted to call it the “rural water test kit” with the tests for pesticides, nitrates and nitrites.  The only drawback I see is that there is only one bacterial water test.  Still, you can always pick up one of the cheaper bacterial tests if you need to.

I hope that has helped. If you want to order any of these tests, please click on the TestCountry link in the “BlogRoll” box to the right.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinksherbet/503685059/

Technorati Tags: bacterial contamination, bio waste, e coli, pollution, water quality, water testing kits

Which Water Testing Kits are Best for You?

water drop

Is your water safe to drink?  How can you tell?

Technorati Tags: bacterial contamination, bio waste, e coli, pesticides, pollution, water quality, water testing kits