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Tools for Monitoring Water Quality

Water is essential for nearly all aspects of sustaining life on Earth. Contamination and chemical breakdown can affect water for drinking, cleaning, or growing crops, causing it to be ineffective and potentially dangerous. Methods of testing water continue to evolve, ensuring public safety and allowing for private land owners to utilize ground water safely and efficiently.

  1. Testing Through Observation

    • The three main aspects of water quality that can be tested, either through observation or by using testing materials are chemical content, physical content and biological content. The physical content can be tested to a degree through basic observation. Viewing the turbidity, or presence of visible solids that collect in a stationary sample of water, can be done by filling a clear glass and watching for particles that continue to move or collect near the top of the glass. Water cloudiness can also be a sign that contaminants are present. As clean water should be odorless, the presence of even faint odors may signify the presence of contaminants such as fecal coliform or organic compounds.

    Testing Materials

    • Testing the chemical content of water involves running water from the sample source, water body, pump or faucet, then applying pH test strips to test the potential for the presence of hydrogen. The test strips turn a color that can be measured as either acidic or alkaline. Nitrate test strips test the presence of nitrate concentrations. Such concentrations that exceed 10 milligrams per liter can be harmful to infants. Manual tests such as COLI-MOR and LaMonte tests can test for the presence of biological content such as fecal coliform, bacteria and viruses. These tests involve observing color changes, gas formation and vial thimble position changes in a collected water sample at rest for 24 to 36 hours.

    Lab Testing

    • Although the presence of bacteria alone does not represent unsafe drinking water, as many bacteria are not harmful to humans, their presence does signify the potential for harmful bacteria, and the possibility that fecal coliform may be present. Water showing unknown biological content, or a high level of total dissolved solids, should be tested in a laboratory, preferably on the day the sample was collected. For those testing well water, the presence of unsafe biological guests may warrant pumping deeper into the aquifer or developing a new well site.

    The EPA and the National Water Program

    • The Environmental Protection Agency oversees the safety of water from a variety of sources. The EPA has developed the National Water Program to focus on the specific concerns of efficient water treatment and water safety. Expanding scientific research is aimed at evolving the processes of testing to combat ever-changing strains of contaminants.

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