If you are like us, there will not be city water running to your build site. In our case, we are using a well. It’s so funny when I’d hear at work people talk negatively about a house with a well and septic - I grew up with those and had no issue, so I was not concerned.
However, throughout my young adulthood, I’ve read more and more about environmental toxins. I’ve tried to educate myself more about toxins in our everyday products (food, personal care, technology), and there is just so much to learn - it can be overwhelming! One thing I do know is that clean, toxin-free water is critical for longevity and health. Especially since we plan to grow a family in this home.
With all of that said, the land we are investigating is not too far from a petroleum pipeline. If the line blew - yes, us - and many others - would be screwed. But I was thinking more along the lines of, what if there were small, slow leaks seeping into the groundwater?
I certainly don't have all the answers, but here's just some things we are thinking about relative to our well:
I want to make sure our well is protected from chemicals - for this I am checking proximity to nearby farms, the pipeline, and even Flint which we are not too far from.
I did realize we are on the edge of a watershed boundary, which I thought was cool and best for drainage.
We haven't analyzed the subsurface and groundwater flow directions to better understand our risk with the pipeline, but there are some resources below to get you started if you're interested for your lot. Are we higher up and the flow goes away from us? Or the path of destruction? lol. I do think our higher elevation is supporting us here. I do know that within our property itself and all the changes of elevation that we will have the well on the higher portion, so we don't get runoff and toxins seeping into the well if it was in a low area.
Upon calling a local well expert he mentioned that if we are within 800ft of the hazardous pipeline or a gas station, that we need to install a steel well instead of PVC. He said this is grouted differently so is more expensive. We can install the well outside of that 800ft boundary, but I'm curious if it's more resistant to toxins if we should just do steel anyway? More research to be done here. For your reference, here is a distance requirement chart.
We are able to get our water analyzed for toxins and plan to do so here.
We also plan to install a whole home water filtration system. More on that later :)
Other well information can be found here for the State of Michigan. You can also read more about finding groundwater levels in a specific location and here as well. Check out interactive maps like here nationally and here for Michigan. Awesome info for protecting your water supply during an emergency. Happy due diligence time to all and to all a goodnight!!
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