Water Decision

[TomG]

I heard about the Louisiana thing as well. Here in Ontario, Canada, we've recently had around a dozen people die in a town of 5,000 and over half the residents seriously ill. The problem was e-coli contamination in a well-fed system. The suspected cause was heavy rains, which flooded wells with surface runoff water from cattle operations in the area. Unlike the Florida case, some of the purification equipment didn't seem to be functioning.

The provincial government finally agreed to launch a public inquiry over the issue. The inquiry will have to sort out whether a decade of government cutbacks and privatization of public utilities contributed to the tragedy. However, for us, I've got to be happy with our wells since there are no rural water systems in the area.

 

[Bird]

Alan, have you reached any conclusions or made a decision yet about your water? I'm curious about what a well costs, how deep you have to go, quality of water you get, etc. if you go with a well instead of the community water.

Our water company notified us yesterday evening that our supplier (City of Corsicana) was going to shut off the water at 4 a.m. this morning for 24 hours to repair a main. The community water system's tanks may (or may not) have enough to last until it's turned back on again.

Bird

 

[Alan L.]

I now have a 500' water well. Unfortunately I don't have any electricity yet, so I can't pump the water out. The driller pumped it out some with a generator and says it will produce about 30 gpm. They put a 5 HP pump on it, which they wouldn't do if it wasn't a good producer. I'm real happy about that. The driller also said he thinks the water is soft, as he said it still had not cleared up while he was pumping it (I hope it clears up). I really won't know the quality until I can get power, but he thinks it will be real good. The cost should be about $12,000 although I haven't received the bill.

With the rural water I found they were hooking my 4" line to a 1.5" line. That pretty much decided it for me.

 

[Bird]

Your "4 inch line"? What in the world are you doing (or going to do)? Most of the folks around here have a 3/4" line from their meter. Our rural water system was just started in 1970 and in a number of cases, a 1" line was run long distances (at a considerable cost to the customer). Then in later years, additional new customers tied onto that same line, and now a lot of folks hardly have enough water pressure to take a shower. Even though the TNRCC says you have to maintain 20 psi in the lines, it frequently isn't done. I'm lucky enough to be on a two inch line at a lower elevation than the pump station, so I have 80+ psi all the time. But I'm glad to hear you got a good well, even though you had to go pretty deep, and at a considerable cost.

Bird