Application Setbacks for Protecting Private Drinking Water Resources

- Good afternoon, everyone.

I think we'll go ahead and get started.

Welcome to our first water webinar of sort of our ag-focused Water webinar series this winter.

Today we're gonna be talking about the importance of a variety of application setbacks for protecting private drinking water resources.

So, sort of just the thought behind this program is just there's a lot of things that we need to apply to our fields to help our crops grow and things like that, but a lot of them do have these application setbacks for our water resources, especially drinking water wells and streams and things like that.

And so sometimes I think a lot of those setbacks can just be, maybe thought of as annoyances.

And today, hopefully we're gonna help answer some questions about why they exist and why you might wanna observe those in the future as you're applying things to your fields.

My name is Danielle Rhea.

I'm a Water Resources Educator with Penn State Extension based in the Jefferson County office.

And then also today with me is Susan Boser, who is also a water resources educator and she's based in the Beaver County office.

So we'll be your two presenters today and we have a couple other educators also on the line that can be helping with questions and things like that.

So I guess I just also wanted to let you know, if you have any questions throughout the presentation, be sure to put those in the Q&A box.

So that box just allows us to keep track of the questions.

If you have any other sorts of technical problems or things like that, you can feel free to send us a chat.

You can either send that just to the hosts and panelists or you can send messages to everyone who are tuned in today as well.

So just a quick note, this presentation is being recorded and we will share it with all participants.

So, I mentioned earlier, we had about 150 people registered for this, but usually not everybody can attend a live webinar, so we'll be sure to get that recording out to everyone within a few days.

And then we might be publishing these online as well.

Quickly, I'll just give you some background on Penn State Extension before we dive into today's topic.

So Penn State Extension is part of the Penn State College of Ag Sciences, sometimes referred to as the outreach arm of the college.

We really focus on taking sort of this research and science-based education that's developed at the university and bringing that out to people and businesses, excuse me, and citizens in Pennsylvania.

So we're driven by the belief that all people should have access to science-based education.

So Penn State Extension teams are groups based on educators, associates, and faculty members.

So we do work with people up at the university, but a lot of the educators are just based in county offices across the state.

So we are members of your community working together to help create solutions and education for our communities.

So we typically work by content area expertise.

So I work with a lot of other people with background in water.

So the other areas we cover with Penn State Extension, I mentioned before that we're part of the College of Ag Sciences.

So most of the areas we cover deal with agriculture, natural resources, food systems, and how they impact people.

So we have the 4H and youth development program, agronomy and natural resources, animal systems, energy, business, and community vitality, food, families, and health, food safety and quality, as well as horticulture.

So here's just a quick overview of what we'll be talking about today.

So to start, we're just gonna review application setbacks from manure, biosolids, and pesticides.

So just kind of a quick overview of what they are.

Then we'll talk about challenges to private drinking water systems in Pennsylvania.

Talk a bit about how groundwater moves, discuss the importance of well construction and location for preventing groundwater pollution.

And then finally, consider the importance of observing setbacks for protecting private drinking water resources.

So we're gonna start just by going over the manure application setbacks.

And the first program that I wanted to start with is the Act 38 Nutrient Management program.

And so manure's regulated either by the manure management program, which sometimes people refer to as Chapter 91, but also through Act 38 Nutrient Management.

And so Act 38 setbacks typically apply to larger farms or higher density livestock farms.

So usually the requirement is just that they have at least two animal equivalent units per acre on their farm and at least a total of eight animal equivalent units.

So to start, if you're a farm that falls under this category, you probably already know that by now.

And so, generally speaking, our magic number for Act 38 manure application setbacks is 100 feet.

And so you can see here that for streams, lakes, ponds and sink holes, the setback, basically meaning you can't apply manure mechanically, is within 100 feet of these surface water bodies or sink hole.

But the setback can actually be reduced to 35 feet if you have a permanent vegetative buffer in place.

So if you have a planted riparian buffer or other types of perennial vegetation that's always there alongside your stream, you can actually reduce your manure application setback to 35 feet.

If you are applying manure from a nutrient balance sheet, so if you basically have an importer or if you're importing manure with that balance sheet, then your initial setback is 150 feet, but you could reduce that to 100 feet if the phosphorus index is conducted.

So when it comes to drinking water wells in springs, I mentioned the magic number is 100.

So, again, 100 feet around any active private drinking water source.

And this is during all times of the year for all ground covers and all directions.

And it's also 100 feet for any active public drinking water source, unless the authority requires a greater distance.

So if the municipality or whoever is using that public water source says that you have to stay further away, that would be the only caveat to that.

So you'll notice here already a little bit of a difference.

So for those surface water bodies and sink holes, we could reduce our setback if we had permanent vegetation, that is not the case for drinking water wells.

Act 38 also has some additional winter application setbacks.

So 100 foot setbacks from down gradient inlets to ag drainage systems, as well as wetlands with exceptional value stream floodplains.

So the other way manures regulated here in Pennsylvania is through the manure management program.

And so this basically applies to anyone else that is either producing or using manure.

And so the surface water setbacks for this program, no mechanical manure application within 100 feet of streams, lakes, or ponds.

And so there are some qualifications here.

So first, that setback only applies during the time of the year when the stream generally flows.

So if you have a stream that doesn't always flow, that's sort of a little bit of an exception there.

What isn't included here are culvert outlets or roadside swales that drain stormwater into a field.

And the setback is calculated from the top of the bank.

So you don't have to go to the water's edge, just sort of from the top of the bank.

They could be the same place or they could be different depending on your stream.

Like Act 38, manure management regs also give you the option to reduce your setbacks, and the reductions are slightly different.

So you could reduce your 100 foot setback, except for in winter application, to 50 feet of streams, lakes, and ponds if you have a soil test that's current, which means it was conducted within the last three years, and that soil test shows that your phosphorus levels are less than 200 parts per million, and you're using no-till practices, and if one residues are removed, a cover crop is planted, or basically, you have residue in place.

You also have the option to reduce your setback to 35 feet of surface water if you have a permanent vegetated buffer in place.

So that's very similar to Act 38.

So here's just a visual depiction of those setbacks.

So, again, 100 feet, sort of your magic number.

Stay 100 feet away.

If you have your soil tests current and your phosphorus levels are within those acceptable ranges, you're using no-till, and you have either crop residue or cover crop, you can reduce that to 50 feet.

And you can further reduce that to 35 feet if you have that permanent vegetative buffer in place.

Another interesting addition to manure management is for concentrated flows.

So this is sort of where those road ditches and swales come into place.

So here there's no setback, but you are prohibited from applying manure within the channel of a non-vegetated swale, gully, or ditch.

Manure management application setbacks are also 100 feet from an existing sink hole, and this is year round, any slope, any ground cover.

So you don't have the option to reduce your setback around sink holes.

And this is probably because those sink holes are providing that direct connection into our groundwater.

So we do wanna be careful around those areas.

So this slide probably looks very familiar because the setbacks for drinking water resources are very much the same, or, I should say, are the same as they are for Act 38.

So, again, 100 feet away from any active private drinking water source, 100 feet away from any active public drinking water source.

And there are no exceptions to this rule, except that for a public drinking water source, this could be increased if the authority required a greater distance.

So, for biosolids, they fall under slightly different setbacks 'cause these are different materials.

So, generally speaking, again, 100 feet away from surface water, 35 feet from intermittent stream.

So it's a little bit parsed down there.

100 feet away from sink holes and 100 feet away from exceptional value wetlands.

Now when it comes to wells and springs that are used for drinking water, we actually have greater setbacks.

So 300 feet from an occupied dwelling, 300 feet from an active private drinking water source, unless you have a written waiver that allows you to go closer.

And then 300 feet from an active public drinking water source, unless the written waiver allows you to get closer.

And then there's no application of biosolids when the soil is frozen or snow covered unless you get permission from DEP.

So this is just a reminder to me.

There's a really helpful article on the nutrient management website that just kind of distills down all of those setbacks so you can have 'em in one place.

So I will just be sure to copy and paste that into the chat when I'm done presenting to you.

So the final type of application setback we're gonna talk about today are pesticide setbacks.

So pesticides are regulated a little bit differently than manure.

And so, just to start, all pesticides are gonna have sort of different characteristics, but pesticides that do have water quality issues are going to have advisories under the environmental hazard section of the label.

And so there's just sort of a snippet of a label here on the screen and an example of what those environmental hazard statements might sound like.

For this one, it says this is a chemical that can travel through soil and under certain conditions, has the potential to contaminate groundwater that may be used for irrigation and drinking water purposes.

Users are advised not to apply this where soils have rapids to very rapid permeability through the profile.

And the water table of an underlying aquifer or shallow or the soils containing sink holes over limestone bedrock or severely fractured surfaces, et cetera.

And so these types of chemicals are probably gonna be likely to stay dissolved in the water than absorb onto soil.

And so because of that, they're gonna be a greater concern for water.

Pesticides can also be listed as restricted use pesticides due to groundwater and surface water concerns.

So if you are using these in your operations, this would be a good place to check, is just right on that front panel of a label or in the environmental hazard section.

So, generally speaking, we know that protecting water resources is required for handling pesticides.

It's just generally listed in the pesticide regulations, basically in this statement that says, "a person may not use, handle, transport, store, dispose, display or distribute a pesticide in a manner that endangers man or the environment." But we can tell this is pretty generic, pretty general.

And because of that, we really do need to look at the label if we wanna find those more specific instructions for how to do this.

So pesticide labels are gonna have, in addition to those environmental setbacks, they could also have statements that require setbacks around all of those environmentally sensitive areas.

So our wells, sink holes, streams and rivers, natural lakes during all different types of activities, from mixing and loading to actually applying, to rinsing and washing your equipment or containers.

And so, again, we have just some language taken off of a label.

You can see what this sounds like.

Basically it says this product must not be mixed or loaded or used within 50 feet of wells, including abandoned wells, drainage wells, and sink holes.

And there's also statements that say kind of what all you have to do this for.

So mixing, loading, rinsing, washing, applying the product.

So just a little bit different, pesticides, from the other products just because it is sort of label specific versus generally for everything classified as manure, everything classified as a biosolid.

And so sort of we're getting the clues that our wells are kind of these vulnerable areas.

And something that was interesting, maybe you noticed when we were talking about manure and biosolids, was there was never an exception for reducing the setback around a well.

With biosolids, you did have the exception if you got a written waiver.

But the other thing that was interesting was, with biosolids, the setback increased significantly around our well heads.

And Susan's really gonna get into the reason why.

But basically for all of these things and even if you're not an ag landowner and you're just sort of a homeowner with a lawn, you wanna keep any of these potentially polluting amendments away from your well.

And so what this really gets down to is creating this well head protection area or a water supply protection area.

So, for pesticides, we're looking at a minimum of 50 feet.

And we always recommend 100 feet for better protection, which is, again, beyond what a lot of regulations and labels require for pesticides, but just a good rule of thumb to follow.

Another good rule of thumb is that these activities, mixing and loading, should be located downhill from wells.

And this is really just pretty straightforward.

Because of gravity, water flows downhill.

So if you have these activities downhill of the well, it has less of a chance of going and impacting your well.

So another strategy for mixing and loading.

Again, we already went over this, but you wanna keep storage and mixing activities at least 50 feet away.

And if that's required on the label, that's what you're required to do.

But you could also use a mixing or loading pad, which is basically like a concrete pad or another impervious surface that you can mix on top of.

And this creates a barrier from pesticides traveling through the soil and down into the aquifer.

And so because of that, you actually can reduce your setback or get rid of your setback if you have an impervious pad.

But you do wanna be careful, if you spill on top of your pad, you still wanna make sure that you can clean that up so that way, again, you can protect those water resources.

I quickly wanted to mention back-siphoning even though it doesn't have anything to do with setbacks directly, but pesticide labels will often also require you to do something to prevent back-siphoning from happening.

So essentially, if you had a hose filling up a solution tank and that hose was allowed to dangle in the solution, the pesticide mixing with water, if you turned off the water or there was just another reason there was a change in pressure that pooled the water back out of that tank, if you're filling from your well, that solution's going directly into your well, if you're filling from a pond or something else, the same thing is happening.

So you wanna take steps to prevent back-siphoning as well.

So one simple step is just using an air gap.

So not allowing the fill hose to come into contact with the spray dilution in the tank.

And there's a picture of it here, but, again, you can just do a different way of physically separating those as well.

And this is just an example of what that instruction might look like as part of the label, which is just, basically it says, "this product must be used in a manner that will prevent back siphoning." Another option is just using a backflow preventer.

So these are basically physical devices that will sense that change in pressure and then prevent the water from going back into the source.

And now I'll turn it over to Susan so she can talk more about the water supplies here in Pennsylvania.

- All right, thank you, Danielle.

Are you seeing my presentation okay?

- Yep, it looks good.

- [Susan] Okay, great, thank you.

So, again, I'm Susan Boser.

I'm water resources educator, based in Beaver County.

And we're gonna talk a little bit more now about groundwater and also more about our water wells and really things to pay attention to as far as construction and just things to keep in mind to further prevent our water resources.

So starting out, let's talk a little bit about our supplies of groundwater in Pennsylvania.

So we have over 1 million homes and farms that utilize groundwater.

And what we find is about 45% of these have never been properly tested.

So people, unless they're having issues maybe with their taste of their water or the way it looks or smells or maybe someone's getting sick, it's just not something that people are testing on a regular basis.

But groundwater is really important.

As you'll see, we utilize it in a lot of different ways.

And when we talk about groundwater ownership in the state, we have access to groundwater, but we don't own the water that's underneath us.

It's kind of like whoever has the biggest straw wins.

So it's a shared resource across the state.

We're the only state with no statewide well construction regulations.

There are some local regulations that exist, but nothing statewide that everyone has to follow.

So that's pretty interesting.

As far as groundwater, let's look at it a little bit closer.

So when we talk about groundwater, a lot of times people think of it as an underground river.

And that can be the case in kind of our karst or limestone areas of Pennsylvania.

But in reality, most of our groundwater is held underwater or underground, like this picture that you see on the screen.

So we have our soil, we have our unsaturated rock underground, and then we have our water table, which is the beginning of that groundwater aquifer.

So if we zoomed in on that even further, you would see that water is held between all of these rocks and pores and all of these little spaces.

So that's our saturated rock, our aquifer, and that's what we're able to tap into whenever we utilize our groundwater resources.

So this kind of looks at a side slice of the earth, the different layers that you would see.

And in Pennsylvania, we get around 40 inches of precipitation each year.

And all of that goes towards either filling our rivers and streams or also recharging our groundwater.

So in this picture we have a couple of different aquifers or rock that is able to hold water underground.

And you can see some of these aquifers come out as springs.

So groundwater is where springs are, or springs are where groundwater is coming to the surface.

And then also, you can see here we have wells which are represented by these vertical red lines that are going down into the aquifers.

And what's interesting and what happens quite a lot is we have two aquifers that are near each other, but then they're separated by an impermeable layer underground.

So in this picture you can see we have two wells represented by those red lines, but even though they look relatively close to each other in this drawing, you can see they're tapped into two separate aquifers.

And that's really important to understand because this means that maybe someone down from your property, they could be tapped into your same groundwater aquifer, but depending on the geology and the lay of the land, they could be tapped into a completely different aquifer.

But all of these aquifers and all of these water resources are ultimately connected together.

So that kind of goes back to the idea, like Danielle was talking about as far as that well head protection.

And just really being aware of the different things, the different resources from water that might be impacted.

So groundwater is always moving also and it's always following the lay of the land as well.

So when we're talking about wells, whenever we drill a well down into the ground, we're tapping into that groundwater resource.

So this is a picture of when a well would be being pumped.

And what happens is we're drawing down that water kind of into this cone shape.

We're drawing it down into our well pump and then utilizing that water for our use.

So you can see what happens, is the water is flowing into the well itself from that surrounding rock that it contains that groundwater aquifer.

This is what is happening when we're pumping our wells up from out of the ground.

The geology of Pennsylvania affects groundwater chemistry, as well as land uses.

So we're talking mainly about land uses, but really the kind of rock that you're well as drilled into can affect your groundwater as well.

So, in Pennsylvania, we have four main aquifers.

So sand and gravels, represented here by the kind of greenish yellow color.

Then we have our sandstone and shale, which really makes up the most of Pennsylvania, kind of that off-white color.

Then we have our limestone or carbonate aquifers, which are those more deep rock fractures and limestones, kind of our caves and sink holes are located in these regions.

And then we have our crystalline rock, which is indicated by the yellow on this map.

And then that pink line shows the limits of glaciation, where the glaciers came down millions of years ago.

So really where your well is drilled into can affect the groundwater chemistry as well.

Also, land use impacts groundwater.

And really, if you stand at your well head and look around, anything that's within sight of your well head has the potential to affect your drinking water, just depending, again, on the lay of the land, how deep your well is, if there's runoff coming from any of these sources.

But there's a whole bunch of different things, as you can see from this slide, that has the potential to affect groundwater resources.

So things like landfills, even just houses and neighborhoods have different things that can run off.

This time of year, roads can run off, things like chloride and sodium from all the salt that we put on our roads.

We have industry, we have agriculture, we have mining, we have gas drilling.

So just all of these different things that can negatively impact our water resources.

We're gonna look a little bit at bacteria though next since that kind of coordinates with manure and with some of these setbacks that we're talking about.

So when we're looking at well head contamination, there's lots of different things that can cause microbial contamination.

So by microbial, this is bacteria that we find possibly just on the surface of the ground or, in some cases, from the guts of warm-blooded animals.

So we can have things actually going from surface water, so running over the ground, and bringing some of this bacteria possibly into our well.

So from things like barnyard, yards, failing septic systems, those things can bring surface water down into our well head and contaminate them, but those things can also contaminate aquifers by those things sinking down into the ground and causing bacterial contamination that way.

And so you can kind of see how the groundwater flows kind of the same direction as the surface water in the schematic.

And you can see everything's flowing towards our well head.

Insects and small mammals are something else that can cause contamination.

And we'll talk more about why that's important to recognize here in just a minute.

So, again, lots of sources of microbial contamination, both coming from the surface and also things that can sink down into our aquifer as well.

Proper well construction is something that is very important when we're talking about reducing bacterial contamination for wells.

So this is something that maybe you might not think a lot about, but a lot of these things are things that maybe were done or maybe weren't done when your well was constructed, but also some changes that you can make sort of after the fact as well.

So as you see the note up there, fewer than 20% of home and farm wells in Pennsylvania have this sanitary construction.

So, again, by sanitary, we're meaning that if you have these five things in place.

It's going to really reduce the impacts of surface water and also of bacteria getting into your well.

So let's look at each of these things.

So number one is to have casing extended 12 inches above the ground.

So sometimes we'll come across wells that might be in a pit or maybe your well might be completely buried.

And the issue with this is if that area gets flooded or if there's standing water around the well, then that's a direct conduit right down into our drinking water resources.

So having that casing extended 12 inches above the ground is one thing to help with this sanitary construction.

The second thing is having casing to bedrock.

So, again, we have the number two here, you see the casing going all the way down to bedrock.

And what that does is creates a nice seal from the surface all the way to the bedrock so that it helps prevent some of that surface contamination from getting into your well.

Next thing is number three, a grout seal.

And that's indicated by that yellow color that you see.

And the picture there on the right is that grout seal being installed on a newly dug well.

So a lot of times this will be a bentonite or a clay material.

And again, that's just giving us another added layer of protection from the surface to our water resources.

Fourth thing there that we see is sloping grounds.

If we have ground that's gently sloping away from our well head, that's going to help prevent surface water, again, from getting down into our well.

And the last thing there is number five, a sanitary well cap.

Now most people have a standard well cap, and it's bolted onto your well in a way that there is a air gap between the casing and the cap.

And what happens there, that's when, remember I talked about small insects and mammals getting up inside your well, this is what can happen when you have that small gap.

The sanitary cap, and hopefully you can see it there around the edge, has a rubber gasket.

So that gasket makes a nice tight seal with your well casing.

It still lets air flow through, but it prevents those little critters and things from getting into your well.

So this is another way to help prevent some of that microbial contamination from getting down into your water supply.

Now what this chart shows, and I think it shows what a really big impact some of these things have, is those well construction features that I mentioned.

The more of them that you have in place, you can definitely see that the percent contamination with either coliform bacteria, indicated by the blue bar, or the E. coli bacteria, which is that bacteria from the gut of warm-blooded animals, it really goes down the more of these well construction features you have in place.

So you can see that having those things in place really can make a difference with protecting your water supply.

Now, as we know, all of wells are not perfect.

So these were actual pictures taken out in the field by some of our educators.

And you can see, on the left, we have just a cement block and maybe a nice little fence there made by the cement blocks.

The cement block is acting as the well cap in this case.

So maybe not the best idea.

That picture in the middle, you can see the well is kind of in a little pit or a little indentation in the ground.

So, again, this well might be a little more susceptible to flooding issues.

And then on the right, you see we have a Maxwell house coffee can being used as a well cap.

So, again, it's important to have your well constructed properly and again, have as many of those five sanitary features in place, if at all possible.

And again, water is gonna take the path of least resistance.

So if your well lacks that proper construction, they can become a superhighway, that area along your well head can become a superhighway for anything from the land getting down into your groundwater.

Now if you have a well that needs to be abandoned or that is not going to be used anymore, you wanna make sure it is properly sealed because any wells that are just left open to the elements, like this one, they also are gonna pose a risk.

And you can see, this well does not have a cap on it and it looks like maybe there's a snake or a snake skin down in there.

It looks like all different kinds of webs and cocoons and things.

So this is definitely a direct conduit down into our groundwater supply.

So we wanna be sure that we properly abandon wells because they can be a source of contamination.

Even though it's not addressed in Act 38, 100 foot setback is recommended even around wells that are unused, again, just because they are that direct conduit down into our water resources.

And some signs you might see, you might not know if you have an abandoned well on your property, but some signs that a well that's abandoned maybe near.

You might find hand dug pits or cisterns that maybe aren't being used anymore.

But, again, these are those super highways from the surface down into our groundwater aquifers.

You might come up with a rusty damaged well head from an old well that isn't in use anymore, or you might see kind of a rock pile.

And this could be a filled well pit or a sink hole.

Again, a depression where maybe things have collected and been thrown over the years, but that could be a well pit or it could be a sink hole, which, again, are those direct paths down into our groundwater resources.

So be on the lookout if you see any of these things on your property, they can be an indication that there could be an abandoned well nearby.

So if we do have a well that needs decommissioned, that is your responsibility as a well owner.

So there are companies that can do this for you where the equipment is properly taken out and the well is properly filled in.

So, again, it is not going to be that direct source of possible contamination into our groundwater aquifers.

So, again, Danielle mentioned this as well, but well head protection, that 100 foot minimum.

So you wanna be especially careful with anything that's happening in this area.

Again, not only those setbacks, but as Danielle mentioned, as far as pesticide applications, changing oil in your car, having animals or livestock in that area.

So that 100 foot minimum is really the most immediate area around your well head where the most contamination has the possibility of taking place.

But you also have to look at other wells that might be in proximity to your wells.

So in this picture, it kind of illustrates that you have wells, and those 100 foot areas around the wells tend to overlap each other.

So you can see we have a lot of different wells clustered together.

So this is important to note too, especially if your neighbor has a well or someone on your property also has a well that they're using.

Some of those 100 foot setbacks are going to overlap.

So it's just really good idea to be aware of the different wells that might be available on your property.

So a little bit about some of the next slides that I'm gonna show you.

This is from a groundwater study that was done in 2006 and 2007, where we looked at 701 private water wells throughout the state for several different pollutants.

So we looked at things like coliform bacteria, nitrates, and some triazine pesticides.

And this was funded by a center for rural Pennsylvania study.

So let's look at the first map here.

So this first one showed well coliform bacteria concentration.

So each dot on here or each indicator on the map that is not a blue dot is showing that there was some coliform bacteria present in these wells that were sampled.

So blue dots did not have any coliform bacteria, but if there's a triangle on there, if there's a yellow square or if there's a red star, that shows that there was bacteria present.

So the red star would indicate that there's greater than 51 to 344 colonies per 100 milliliters.

So red is the greatest, followed by yellow, and then followed by the gray triangle.

But a lot of things went into what were the causes of bacteria being in these wells.

Maybe it was geology, maybe it was water well construction, maybe it was time of year.

So if it was a rainy time of year or wet time of year, that might increase the amount of bacteria that was found in these water wells.

So you can see there's quite a high distribution of wells across the state that were found out of these 701 wells to have bacterial contamination.

The next one here is for nitrates.

Oh, and I forgot to mention on this last slide too, for drinking water standards, we want to see bacteria in water as zero.

So any of these dots that is not a blue dot, those groundwater well resources would've failed the drinking water standard for bacteria, because we wanna see that as zero in drinking water.

Next are nitrates.

And for nitrates, anything over 10 milligrams per liter is above the drinking water standard.

So on this map, anything that is a star is above that 10 milligrams per liter.

Anything that was a yellow square indicates between 3 and 10 milligrams per liter.

And then anything that was a triangle indicates between one and three milligrams per liter.

So, again, all of these show that nitrates were detected in some capacity in these wells with the ones with the red star being over that drinking water standard.

And again, different factors just like bacteria, geology, well depth, and then also distance to agriculture.

And you can see, in the southeast and south central part of the state, it looks like a higher concentration of some of these higher nitrate levels as well.

And that makes sense because this is our larger agricultural area.

And finally, here we have pesticides.

And this was just a presence/absence of this particular pesticide.

So you can see the red star indicates a presence and a blue dot indicates the absence.

We would have better results if we had lower levels of detection for this particular pesticide.

And it was measured presence/absence at three micrograms per liter.

But again, this just kind of gives an example of where some of these impacts for pesticides would be.

So when we talk about some of these impacts, that people might be aware of, affecting their water supply, a lot of water supply owners are unaware of some of these things.

So percentage of people aware of these problems in their water is along the left-hand side of this graph.

And then it shows different things here on the bottom.

So you can see, only about 11% of people were aware that they had a coliform bacteria problem, 18% with a E. coli bacteria problem.

About 31% of people were aware that they had an issue with nitrates in their water.

But when it comes to pesticide, you have very few people, zero that were aware that pesticides could be a problem in their water.

So, again, a lot of it is about awareness and just making people aware of the land used issues that could be impacting their water supply.

Something else to keep in mind is the influence of the depth of the water supply and the water supply type.

So deeper wells tend to have less issues with bacteria as compared to hand-dug wells because, again, they're closer to the surface, so they're receiving more impact from surface water runoff.

And then also springs.

Now, springs, we didn't talk about springs too much in this presentation, but springs, if you remember back at the beginning in that schematic I showed you about the different ways that groundwater moves, springs is just groundwater coming to the surface.

So 90% of springs are gonna have issues with bacteria, about 90%.

So that is just due to the fact that springs are just much more influenced by surface water runoff.

They're much more open kind of to the environment.

And so those impacts are gonna be a lot greater.

So this just goes to show that, depending on your groundwater water supply type, it's just going to really change the way that it's impacted by different types of bacteria.

So this, again, looks at the importance of well head protection and location.

So this looks at the average in milligrams per liter of nitrates, on the left hand side.

And this is looking at a study that looked at 1600 water well and spring samples from across Pennsylvania.

So the further away a well is from an active field, the less impact they have to nitrate.

So that makes a lot of sense.

The further away an activity is, a potentially polluting activity is away from your well head, the less chance there is that that activity is going to have an impact on your water supply.

So some takeaways from what Danielle and I have talked about.

Well construction and location have a huge impact on potential groundwater pollution.

Groundwater moves and flows underground and can definitely carry pollution with it, again, whether that is bacterial pollution, whether it is chemicals, pesticides.

Be very careful of what's going on the surface because that can definitely impact what's going on underground.

Lack of well construction regulations in Pennsylvania means that it's up to you as a private water system owner to take into account that protection of your private water supply.

And also don't forget about neighboring wells that aren't on your property and those abandoned wells that aren't properly sealed as well.

So the farther away manure, biosolids, pesticides, and really anything are applied from well heads, the less likely they are to end up in our drinking water resources.

And there is just some more information.

Extension.psu.edu, where we have lots of other articles and online courses.

And if you put a /water after that, that'll take you right to our water resources page with more water specific information.

And also, you can sign up for our water team newsletter.

It's a monthly newsletter that comes out talking about different programs and projects that we're doing and also letting you know about any upcoming webinars or courses that we might have going on as well.

So that's the link there.

And we can put all of these in the chat as well so that you'll have those too.

And I know Danielle had a link that she shared earlier as well.

And some of our upcoming ag-water webinars.

Danielle, I'm gonna turn this part back over to you so you can talk about some of these upcoming webinars, if that's okay.

- Yeah, thanks, Susan.

So we just have three more upcoming webinars focused on just topics that relate to both agriculture and water.

And so on next Monday, so they're all on Mondays at noon.

So next Monday, we have one on concentrated flow paths.

So our watershed specialists or our watershed extension specialists, I should say, will be presenting on that.

So kind of thinking about ways that nutrients can leave our fields.

Then on February 27th, a group of us will be presenting on considerations for using grass riparian buffers on farms.

So a lot of time there's debate between trees versus grasses and things like that.

So talking about the pros and cons of I'm using a grass buffer.

And then on March 6th, Andy Anja will be presenting on how stormwater fees are affecting rural property owners in Pennsylvania.

So they're all sort of same format as today's, just Mondays at noon.

And I can maybe look for the signup links for those, or you can definitely find them on the website.

So look forward to seeing you there if you have interest in any of those other topics.

But thanks so much for your time today.

Definitely put some questions in if you have 'em.

If you don't have any questions, I'm gonna put a link to an evaluation that we'd really appreciate you completing for us so we know if you learn anything, if you like today's program, if you have suggestions for us for other webinar topics.

So I will give you guys a couple minutes to put, or not minutes, a few seconds I guess to put some questions in and we'll hang out at least until they die down, if there are a bunch of questions.

But I'll put that link in the chat.

Whoops, that's the wrong link.

Susan, it looks like one came in.

Where do you buy, I'm guessing, sanitary well caps at?

- That's a great question.

So they're pretty easily to find.

You can get them at a big box store or you can actually order them online.

And they're gonna run you about 65, $75.

So you can get one for under $100.

And there's something that if you're handy, you can install it yourself.

There is a little bit of wiring involved.

If you don't feel comfortable installing it yourself, you can have your well driller install it for you.

And I think you should be able to buy one even through your well driller if they can purchase one that way and then install it for you too.

So, good question, thank you.

I should have mentioned that, but yeah, sanitary, well caps are one of those things you can do after the fact to just further enhance the safety of your water supply.

- Great, thanks.

The next question is just, "can streams be used to water livestock?" And yes, in Pennsylvania at this time, there's no restrictions on that.

So usually we recommend specific access points and things like that just from a herd health perspective, as well as a water quality perspective, but I guess the short answer to that is, yes.

Aida asked if you're getting a recording.

Yep, you'll all get a recording within a couple of days.

So question, "how often are applicators of biosolids and manure monitored, who's responsible for the monitoring?" So most of the regulations fall under either the Department of Environmental Protection or the State Conservation Commission with delegation agreements to different county conservation districts.

So manure applicators have to go through a certification program, commercial manure applicators in Pennsylvania.

And then farmers are all required to have plans.

So there's periodic checks for those people as well.

It sort of depends on what exact program they fall in.

But yeah, that should answer that question.

Here's a good one for you, Susan.

Can bacteria be killed by boiling the water?

- Yes, so, while it's not a good long-term approach to getting rid of bacteria.

If your water boils for a full minute, a full rolling boil, that can take care of bacteria.

So a lot of times, even with public water supplies, if there's a water main break, sometimes you might hear a boil water advisory.

So that's the idea for that, is boiling that water will kill bacteria.

Now, I wouldn't recommend that if you have a bacteria issue with your well because you're gonna be boiling an awful lot of water and it's probably not gonna meet your needs.

So that's a good short-term solution.

Long-term for taking care of bacteria in the water, you have a couple of different options.

You can install a chlorinator which adds a continuous dose of chlorine to your water and that can be put in for a whole house system to take care of all the water in your home.

Another thing you can do is an ultraviolet light.

And this is a light that is going to have the drinking water pass through this light tube and ultraviolet light gets rid of bacteria in the water and renders it so it's not harmful to you.

So those are two better long-term options.

So if you do know you have a bacteria issue with your drinking water, those would be two things that you could try.

But short-term, yes, boiling for a minute, that full rolling boil will take care of bacteria in the water.

- Great, what about hand spraying for bugs or weeds close to the well?

- Still I would maintain that 100 foot, that 100 foot setback, that 100 foot of well head protection.

While you might not be using huge amounts in that case, you still have that potential for your well head being that direct conduit down to your drinking water supply.

So whenever possible, anything within that 100 feet, I would avoid spraying near your drinking water well.

- Great, yeah, and I guess I would just add that if you happen to be using a product that has a setback listed on the label that that also does include handspring.

So it's not just for larger applications.

Any advice on telling if a well has a lining or not?

Or maybe the grout seal.

The question said lining specifically.

- Hmm.

I don't know if they're talking about a aligning within the casing itself.

For the grout seal, you should probably be able to see around your casing if there is a grout seal in place.

But that's something where if you're not sure, you may want to get a well driller to come.

Sometimes they have cameras that they can use to look down inside your well if there's something you're not sure of.

Something else you can do too, and I didn't have this information in the presentation, but it's a good resource, if you wanna find out about your well, about its construction, there is a resource that you can Google.

It's called Pennsylvania Groundwater Information System.

So if you put in PAGWIS, PAGWIS in Google or any kind of search engine, you can put in information about your water well that you know and they can, it can look up information about your well.

So if you wanna find out the depth of your well, if it does have casing, what's the distance to bedrock, the distance to water.

This PAGWIS system can help provide you with some of that information.

So that is an option to find information about your water resource, or if you know, again, who drilled your well.

That's a good way to find out as well.

- Yeah, and they specified casing, so I think you did a good job of answering that.

Does Penn State water tests find pesticide issues as well as coal form and nitrate?

So I guess maybe what does the lab test for?

- So pesticides, unfortunately, are not something that we can test for at our lab.

However, there is a resource online, it's called National Testing Lab.

And I think their website is watercheck.org, and they do have a pesticide testing package that you can use to test for pesticides.

But again, that's not something specifically that our lab does test for.

We do have, and I don't know if we can throw the lab's website up there in the chat as well, but the lab does offer testing either for individual parameters or they have different packages that group things together.

So things like bacteria and nitrates, pH, total dissolved solids, hardness, iron, manganese, chloride, barium.

So I mean our lab does do a pretty extensive amount of testing, but unfortunately pesticides are not one of them.

Something that the lab does have on its website, if you're interested, you can look either statewide or by county to see test results for different parameters of water tests around the state.

So let's say if you're in Beaver County and you wanna see how many wells in Beaver County had high levels of iron, so that's something that you can find from all the water tests done from a particular county by Penn State's lab.

So sometimes that's interesting to look at, especially if you're gonna have your water tested and you want some maybe insight as, hmm, what can I test for or what might be an issue in my particular area.

That historical information from the lab can be super helpful to look at in that regard.

- Great, so the next question, "what are the medical implications of atrazine?" Which I don't actually specifically know that.

I know, at least for immediate things you can, like, the label will say the main cautions around that, but I'm not sure.

Do you know, Susan, why they chose to look for atrazine products?

I think it was mostly just 'cause they persist in the environment a little bit longer than glyphosate and some other things.

- Yeah, I wasn't directly involved in that study, but I do believe that's why, is because it was something that does persist.

But yeah, I'm not sure of the medical implications either.

- Someone just mentioned that Home Depot sometimes has free water testing kits.

So I guess we just always encourage using a lab if, an accredited lab just because those go through that accreditation process with DEP.

So you can be really assured that those results are accurate.

Some of those over the counter tests are good and some of them are just variably accurate.

But if it's free, it doesn't I guess hurt to check it out.

Those are all of the questions.

So thanks, everyone, for sticking on with us today.

We appreciate your attendance.

If you have any other questions, I think we can probably stick around for a couple more minutes, but that concludes today's webinar.

So thanks so much for participating.

And don't forget to fill out the evaluation.