The third step of a water supply integrity program is for trained community members to carry out ongoing maintenance and testing of all the active domestic use water sources to ensure that the integrity of each water supply is preserved.
Ongoing maintenance and testing may include regularly scheduled water quality sampling, well performance testing, and well rehabilitation activities. At a minimum, this typically includes sampling and shock chlorinating the water sources annually. If new water sources are developed, they should be incorporated into the ongoing maintenance and testing program.
Waterline is available throughout the program to provide support to the community on an as needed basis, including managing the data collected and providing an assessment as to the integrity of the water supply.
Ongoing water well maintenance and testing are often overlooked by individual well owners, which can lead to both a reduction in water quality and production. While water supply integrity issues are initially identified and addressed during the baseline testing program, if left unchecked these issues can reoccur and put the well and users at risk. Regular maintenance can help protect the users’ health and extend the life of the water well.
By regularly collecting and analyzing water samples, changes in the water quality over time can be assessed and the data compared against the Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality to identify any health-based concerns. The analytical results can also be used to identify potential minerals that can precipitate or the presence of bacteria that can plug the screen and affect well performance.
Regular well performance monitoring, or short-duration pumping tests, can be used to identify changes to the water quantity which may be an early indication of well deterioration.
Waterline supports the community by:
• Managing and assessing the collected data;
• Providing immediate notification to the community of any health-based water quality issues;
• Advising on measures to be taken to protect the affected community members’ health; and
• Providing guidance on how to rectify any other water source integrity issues, such as well deterioration.
Ongoing maintenance and testing on multiple water sources can result in large datasets that can be difficult for the community to manage. Waterline has developed a customized water supply integrity program database that is used to automate most of the tasks related to data importing, graphing measured groundwater levels, notifications and reporting. A summary report can be provided to the individual water source users that details the results of the current testing program and compares these to the results of the baseline testing program. The report includes recommendations to the community members to help resolve any water supply integrity issues. It is important that community members be trained so that they can carry on the ongoing maintenance and testing tasks that are required to ensure the water supply integrity into the future.
Throughout the water supply integrity program, Waterline will provide appropriate training for the community members. Details on the training program are presented in a separate video.
For more information on how Waterline can help, please contact our water source integrity program coordinator Brent Morin at bmorin@waterlineresources.com.