Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Water Woes

"Get county water,"they said. "It will be better." they said. WRONG!

I'm sure you have heard about the water situation in West Virginia by now. How a chemical leak shut down water for hundreds of thousands of people.  I don't live in West Virginia, but I live close enough that that is all that was on the news.  They still have a banner crawling across the bottom of the t.v. telling people not to use the water in certain areas.  People went crazy buying up every available water in all the stores.   Fire departments in some towns that weren't under the restrictions, opened their water hydrants so people could bring containers to get clean water.  The water ban is slowly being discontinued in parts of that affected area.


One of the many things that scare me about public water is the possibility of contamination.  These people didn't know that their water was bad until they got a call from the water company.  There were a few people that were actually admitted to the hospital because of their water.  I'm sure that the water company didn't send their customers bad water on purpose, but it still happened.  You just have to be realistic about things.  If you think about it, that's scary.


If you have been following my blog for a little while, you will remember that we went to county water when our well went bad.  I wasn't real happy about it, but it's nice to not to worry about water that turns everything red.  Anyway, the county water that we went to has been having it's problems lately also.  The county water has been having so many leaks and line breaks that we have been on a boil water order for almost a week.  We also have no water pressure.  Hubby has to take a cup into the shower so that he can fill it with the small stream of water coming out of the shower head and dump it on his head.  It's actually comical.  But not enough water pressure to run the washer, isn't real fun.  I know, I could do it by hand, but then what would I have to complain about.  :0)

Hubby and I were talking about the water situation last night.  I think we are going to find us a water cooler that we can use for drinking and cooking water.  That's the most important thing about water usage anyway.   When we need drinking water we will go to Hubby's dad's house and get water from their well that they have had for years.  It's the best spring fed well that we know of.  The water taste great.  When it comes to dishes and washing clothes we can use the county water.  It should work for that. Unless we don't have pressure, then we will just have to dip the water from our old cistern that is up by our old house.  We are blessed.  At least we do have water that we can use.  We have our pond and we have the old cistern.  Not something that we would want to drink from, but it can still be used for flushing the toilet and such.

The next time you turn on your faucet and water comes out, be happy.  You have it good.

So until next time,

Small Farm Girl, water lover

P.s.  We finally got our water pressure back today.  Yay!!!!!




6 comments:

Stephanie Appleton said...

We have city water too. I wish we had a well. We were told good wells were rare here. Our home isn't affected by the WV situation, but our work place is. Times like this make think what would we do if the city water was out long term. We have rain collection, but it would need treated before drinking.

Glad you got your pressure back!

Sandy Livesay said...

Small Farm Girl,

We don't drink water from our tap. It smells like dirt, runs clear. We filter our water thoroughly. My husband and I made our own water filtration system. I found this filtration system from a friend who wrote a blog post and supplied all the resources to make it. Check Mike's blog our here: http://livingprepared.blogspot.com/2011/01/gravity-fed-safe-drinking-water-filter.html

We've been using this system for 2 years now and love it. We've even made a spare system for when we go camping. I hope this helps!!!

small farm girl said...

It's something to think about. I thought about getting a really good filter.

small farm girl said...

Thanks Sandy!!!! I just might have to try this!

NancyDe said...

We're lucky to be on catchment. Only once in 17 years has there been a drought that meant real trouble (at least for our family) and hauling water. We use more now that we've more animals and bigger kids, so occasionally I will fret a bit - but then it rains again and the tanks fill up! I hope our county doesn't get water up our way any time soon.

Sandy Livesay said...

This filter system filters just as good as those very expensive systems. We love our homemade one from using those instructions.