BE WELL INFORMED: A WEB TOOL FOR PRIVATE WELL OWNERS

Abstract

New Hampshire’s Be Well Informed: A Web Tool for Private Well Owners The Be Well Informed (BWI) tool was published online in 2015 to help private well users better understand their water quality test results for commonly found pollutants in New Hampshire’s groundwater and identify appropriate water treatment technologies. New Hampshire is fortunate to have an abundance of clean groundwater, and approximately 43% of the state’s residents (over 500,000 people) rely solely upon private domestic wells as their primary source of drinking water. While many private wells provide high quality drinking water, certain pollutants like arsenic, iron and manganese are often present in groundwater at levels that can affect public health and home appliances. Having water test results from an accredited lab, users may enter test results into BWI and the tool generates a report based upon one or more contaminants entered, and when necessary, summarizes water treatment options based upon whether the water quality meets Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCLs), Secondary Maximum Contaminant Levels (SMCLs), or accepted health advisory or guidelines. BWI’s water treatment recommendations are based on a series of logic models developed by NHDES that dynamically modify treatment based upon the contaminants entered. BWI’s goal is to ensure private well owners choose an appropriate treatment technology based on their lab results and take actions to reduce exposure to arsenic and other contaminants. To date, over 3,500 private well owners in New Hampshire have entered their water quality results into BWI and nine states and one native American tribe are developing their own version of this online tool.