First of all: Where in your system was the sample taken? At the well? At a tank? At a faucet?
The answer to this question is important for the next steps.
Be aware that high lead content can also be an issue for plant watering and even showering.
If the sample has been taken at a endpoint (faucet) I would try to get another sample at the well directly. If you are “lucky” the acidity of the water is the reason lead is brought into your system from a section of your transport system. In that case replacing the transport layer (basically: Get new pipes) is the best approach - while it’s not cheap it is also not as expensive as filtering (or dealing with the health issues from lead, especially in the US).
If the well shows the same values you are screwed. There are basically two scenarios then: Your well installation itself is the problem - this is in theory “fixable” but expensive, but you might accidentally even poisoning your neighbours then. (The way to find out if it’s your installation is either with specialised equipment or, for some confirmation, get a sample from a neighbour who ideally life upstream from you)
If it’s not your well installation then it’s the well itself…and then you really really need a more extensive analysis: Lead in a ground water deposit is somewhat rare and often a indication something else is problematic - both because geologically lead is often next to other nasties, but also because human caused pollution with lead often goes with the real nasty stuff like arsenic,etc. And you really would want to find these. Then shit sadly becomes really expensive.
Yikes
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How does one go about acquiring test results like this? The water at my apartment has always tasted exceptionally bad but I don’t know how to check it. I’ve always run everything through a Britta filter, but it would be nice to do a proper test of some kind
Check locally and state websites. You should be able to find some local labs if you want something this detailed otherwise if you want to spend less with less precise results you can look for well water test strips online that will test for like 15 different things. It will not test for bacteria or PFAs. Those are separate tests.
Thank you!
This is standard when someone sells their house, as I understand it. There’s a disclosures form you have to fill out so that potential buyers (me) can see all the awful shit you would prefer not to tell anyone about. I assume you legally have to tell, though. So it’s a professional water testing outfit. I’ve never sold a house, so I haven’t done this myself before.
You can buy a test kit at your local hardware store or Amazon. Very easy.
I just wanted to add that a reverse osmosis system would bypass the lead and I think everything else there in your drinking water. If you are going to have kids in the house then you need to fix the lead issue because especially little ones will drink the bath water.
But yes, knowing why you have that much lead in your water and the source is important. It could be lead pipes or soldering. From my own research I found that, especially if it is an older well, if there is a lead packer installed down in the well then you’ll have to get it lined at some point to stop the problem.
do you have fire insurance?
That’s a lot of lead. Damn.
Were those samples from water drawn straight out of the well manually or did the test sample go through your pump/pipes? My main concern would be that the groundwater is contaminated with lead rather than the lead leeching from somewhere in the topside system.
https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/basic-information-about-lead-drinking-water
Basically:
- It’s safe to shower in
- You may be able to filter it out
- If I was buying a house, and the water tested that heavily for lead, I’d remove it from consideration.
Few things:
First off find out the age of the well and the pipes.
The water is very soft and acidic (low pH). This means that if the pipes/well casing are slowly being disolved. That’s likely why the iron is high. If the pipes contain lead anywhere, they are also dissolving the lead.
Only real solution = all new well and 100% plumbing replacement.
If the system is not that old and the groundwater is contaminated , a filtration system is required. Look for a whole house filtration system.
Either way it’s an expensive fix. I would get some experts out to diagnose the issue. Then require the seller to pay for the necessary fixes as a contigency on your offer.
Jesus o.o nearly 0.1mg/liter?
Maybe I’m really bad at unit conversions, someone correct my math:
human is 5L of blood (or 50dL)
98ug/L => 9.8ug/dL
15% of that gets absorbed if ingested
9.8 * 0.15 = 1.47ug/dL absorbed (per dL injested)
Your blood levels exceed worker exposure limits at 60ug/dL, and poisoning ranges from 30ug/dL to 330ug/dL.
So for this, if you drink a little more than 4L of water (which isn’t that hard to do) you’ve exceeded your exposure limits.
Idk how long you’ve been drinking that water, but I would maybe get checked out by a doctor?
It’s for a house I would like to buy. I don’t live there.
I saw you mentioned Maine coastline. Maine has a lot of mineral deposits up and down the coast, and I know of at least one zinc/lead mine.
The metal content is probably because the water is acidic and leaching the natural metals. If that’s the case, redrilling a well won’t give you any benefit. You’d definitely want a filter system anywhere on the coast, and reverse osmosis would make the water taste a hell of a lot better too. (Unless you like that brackish tasting water)
That water looks pretty toxic. Probably alright for bathing and washing, but I wouldn’t take my word for even that much. I’d look to put that plot of land in a larger context. Is it near a mine or an industrial area? Is it a problem that can be fixed by drilling a new, deeper well in a different spot?
Im not sure I would buy a house with water like that, or at least have some heavy duty filters in place. Lead poisoning is no joke. Be careful
It’s right on the east coast, in fact. An inlet, anyway.
Idk. I’m not an expert in anything. I’d just caution that if something seems too good, it probably is. I know what it’s like to get your heart set on something, especially a piece of land you can call home.
The simple answer is don’t drink the water: the heavy metal content (particularly lead) is many times higher than you want.
If you go down the filtering route make sure that your filters are accessible enough that changing them isn’t a chore and set reminders so that you always change the filter. It won’t be often enough that you’ll build up a habit for changing them and you really want safe drinking water.
Reverse osmosis filtration. It can get expensive but cheaper than hauling water constantly.
How are the neighbors not having to deal with this?
Maybe they have it too, maybe it’s your delivery system. If all the pump plumbing is old lead solder then there’s your answer.
To add to this, the water is slightly acidic, so this could be due to leaching.
yeah, I don’t know much about it but maybe it’s like what happened in Flint, MI and when those people got put on an acidic/basic water source it made the lead leach out.
Bad luck? I have very high levels of mica sediment in my well that my immediate neighbors do not have. I asked my neighbors when I moved in and none of them had that problem. The well company said that they usually drill a new well.
A few miles away a neighbor has such high radon that they need special filters that need to be disposed of by a professional company because it needs to be treated as a radiation hazard. I have no radon in my water.
As someone else said for lead, if you have old soldered copper pipes, that could be your lead problem.
A professional company can install water treatment to make your water safe. The well pump salesman showed off some of the crazy systems that they had done. One was a system of really large water tanks connected to a very large Reverse Osmosis system to deal with a well that had bad water quality.
maybe they have no idea. do you live near mines?
Nope, this is coastal Maine
acidic water can leach some metals from ground, so maybe that’s what’s going on. in that case there might be no lead in pipes and it’ll still get in water because it got there before touching piping
Mightn not be. MIght just be lead heads. What are their voting patterns? Do they engage in impulsive behaviors?
Not an expert but I do have a well. You definitively don’t want to be drinking more lead than the EPA limit. I would get a filtration system installed ASAP and not drink from that well until it is installed, and especially don’t let children drink the leaded water because they are more susceptible to brain damage. If anyone has been drinking this water it would be a good idea to get tested for lead exposure ASAP.
Do you think all the neighbors filter like this, or are their wells avoiding this problem somehow?
I would hope so, if there’s lead in the water the only way to avoid it is by filtering it out. Do kids in your neighborhood have lots of behavioral problems and/or seem unusually dumb?
This is the US here, remember
Where was the sample taken? Could there be lead in the lines from the well to that sample point?
Worth looking into, for sure
just ask them?
I don’t actually live here, I just want to. Except for the leaded water part.
First of all, don’t drink that stuff, and don’t water your plants with it.
Loads of metals (Lead!) and still acidic. Not good. What is the source of the acidity? CO2? Acidity leads to metals getting dissolved, so this might the the point where to look.
Have a look at https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/national-primary-drinking-water-regulations - This does not sound good for your case.
Your worst problem is definitely the lead. Look at https://www.epa.gov/lead/will-my-filter-remove-lead for more information.
AND: Download the information from EPA - you’ll never know how long they will still be available under the current administration.
We’ll probably be required to drink leaded water soon, because it’s somehow good for corporate profits.
'murica!
Unleaded costs extra.
Filters or buy water by the gallon. You’ll have to actually talk to your neighbors, no one here can know for sure (unless your neighbor is here too).
They’re doing one 1 of four things:
- Enjoying lead free water because its a problem in your house
- Enjoying leaded water ignorant of the lead.
- Buying lots of bottled of water.
- Installed a filter system.
Whole home water filters is what you want. Work with a filter company to figure out what you need.
Your neighbor might have different test results. My parents moved their we’ll 50 ft after it got struck by lightning and the water was very different.
I also refill filtered water for drinking. 5gal jugs, has a dispenser with both hot and cold. I do u-haul style water, not a well. It’s from the city but I prefer the taste of the filtered water.
Whole home water filters is what you want.
My well water had arsenic in it and I installed a filter only on the cold water line to the kitchen sink. I only drank that water and unfiltered water was fine for everything else. Something like that could be much cheaper for OP.
Damn. No one will ever buy this house. What a shame. It’s absolutely gorgeous in every other way.
If you can afford it, redo your plumbing.
You can also look into a whole house filter, ideally do both.
Alternately, do not drink, cook with, or water plants with that water and obtain your water elsewhere until you are able to fix it.
maybe you can make ion exchange filter work. remember to maintain it regularly and test water for lead content after filter is installed to make sure it works. ion exchange resins work best if water flow through them is slow
