If you have well water, it might be highly polluted. In Oregon’s lower Umatilla Basin, officials describe the situation as a groundwater crisis. This crisis is caused by decades of commercial food production that has contaminated the aquifer below the region. Since wells tap into aquifers, the situation is not unique to Oregon. It is a problem nationwide that could be impacting your and your family’s health.
Recent studies have found dangerous levels of nitrates that threaten the health of people who drink well water. But the biggest crisis is that people aren’t aware that their well water is contaminated. The general belief is that well water from an aquifer is cleaner than tap water. It’s not, and this belief makes well water even more dangerous, especially since the nitrates detected in the water don’t change its appearance, taste, or smell. Even if the nitrates are in concentrations that are dangerous to our health, we don’t know they’re there!
Well water has reached such a crisis because there is feeble enforcement when it comes to dumping contaminated water into the ground that ends up in the aquifer. There is an extensive agricultural lobby in Oregon and all across the United States that actively works to keep environmental protection laws off the books so that agriculture can make more money. In fact, if you want to run for office in many of the rural states in this country, you have to have the endorsement of the agricultural industry!
Because of this weak enforcement, no specific laws focus on testing well water The aquifer in the Umatilla basin supplies 12,000 people with water. As many as 700,000 depend on well water in Oregon alone. That’s tens of millions across the United States!
The conclusion is that even if you have well water, you should be using a multi-stage water filtration system, like what you find in our premium alkaline water ionizers. Nitrates and other contaminants aren’t detectable, which makes them a danger to you and your family.
