Review: Groundwater contamination
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 11 18, 2012
Mr. Meeks and his neighbors are certainly in a bad spot. I understand that the water is bad, and they cannot or do not want to use the water as it comes out of the well. I am unclear on exactly what are the different contaminants, and what are the concentration levels of each contaminant vs. what the allowed limits are for each of the contaminants in his well water. Water can be okay to drink, but still not be attractive. I remember one time growing up and going to visit some friends in another town where the water contained sulfur, but it was still safe water. It made the water unpleasant to drink, and sprinkling the lawn made the whole area smell like sulfur and stained the sidewalks. I was glad that I did not live there. This issue needs more work. More data needs to be collected and analysis performed to understand this issue.There was no comment regarding the possibility of installing a cistern system using the roof as a rain water collector. I do not know how big his roof is, or the annual rainfall, nor do I know what his daily and weekly etc. demands are for water. It may be that he would not be able to get enough rainwater for his needs.  Given that it is Wyoming and it gets cold in the winter time, I expect that a cistern would have to be buried under several feet of earth to keep the water from freezing. Burying a tank, or tanks, or building one on site would seem to be a possible solution to the household water issues. Rainwater can be used for bathing and cloths washing easily. Cooking and drinking water could require some treatment. A cistern system could be mostly self operating if fed from the roof. He would just pump water out of the cistern rather that from the well. It would seem that a cistern system could make his house marketable in the future, and negate water related health issues now and in the future.In an ideal world, the EPA would be an honest broker. However, given their political position on (1) continuing to force the use of corn to make ethanol for use in ethanol gasoline onto the American public when the world has a food shortage, with high food prices, and (2) using the Clean Air Act to close dozens of coal fired power plants, which will probably cause electrical shortages, for example, I consider that the EPA has been corrupted by our political masters and the Green lobby. It is unfortunate that Congress did not write a better law when the EPA was stood up. I believe that the EPA has been captured by the Green lobby in this country in general, and that they cannot be relied upon to serve the people first. In an ideal world, the EPA would do cost benefit analysis on all of its rules and regulations, and Congress could vote on any new rule with a significant lifetime cost ($100M or ?). Ideally, the EPA would be an honest broker between big business, and the green lobby, and remember that its first responsibility is to the people, including Mr. Meeks and his neighbors in this case.