NSF Award
2420817
Clean and sustainable water is necessary for good health. About 40 million people in the United States rely on private well water for drinking and household uses. Often, this water is not monitored or treated like water distributed through public supply systems leaving private well users at an increased risk of exposure to chemical or microbial components that can trigger or exacerbate health problems. The changing climate happening across the US can negatively influence water quality for private well users. It is, thus, important to understand how climate and water-contaminating factors work together to result in well water that is unsafe to drink with the potential for serious health consequences. A location particularly hard hit by this phenomenon is the US Gulf Coast. To address the climate/well water safety problem, a broad network of scientists, health/medical professionals, and other stakeholders in the Gulf Coast have created a Private Water Well Research Coordination Network. This network connects researchers and stakeholders across the well water ecosystem to enable a multi-pronged concerted effort to identify problems and possible solutions/interventions needed by those relying on private wells for drinking water. Goals are to help well owners and others understand the causes, health implications, and risks of consuming contaminated water and how to know if well water is compromised. The network will create public education and outreach materials; devise well water mitigation and improvement strategies; and develop means for alerting well users of declines in water quality due to climate-driven events such as salt water intrusion, flooding, and sewage/animal waste pond overflows. The network will create and disseminate best practices in water quality monitoring to help keep private well water safe. To accomplish these goals, the network holds regular virtual meetings that include strategy sessions, collaboration discussions, and planning of research agendas that include participation by geoscientists, health/medical professionals, and community/civic entities. The network is focused on actionable results, ones that align with high priority water-well user needs. Broader impacts include improved quality and safety of private water wells, production of educational materials to help better ensure safe well-derived drinking water, improved health of those relying on private well water, and means by which well owners can determine whether their water is safe to drink. Additional impacts include developing connections between geoscientists and health/medical practitioners, as well as addressing a serious problem in a number of EPSCoR states (Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi) across the South.<br/><br/>Access to safe and sustainable drinking water is paramount for human health and well-being. Approximately 15% of the US population relies on private drinking water wells that do not adhere to approved drinking water standards or require monitoring and treatment that is done for municipal supplies. Private well users must act as their own water utility, assuming the responsibility for maintaining a safe water supply. Climate change, including salt water intrusion into coastal aquifers and water wells, drought that increases the concentration of toxic metals and/or organic/biological agents in groundwater, and flooding which can contaminate well water with bacteria and microbes from sewer outflows or livestock manure containment ponds. All have the potential to seriously impact the health of private well users. However, there is limited information for this segment of the population on how to understand and monitor water safety from phenomena driven by climate change at the timescale on which water safety is defined. The Private Water Well Research Coordination Network serves this pressing need and provides a coordinated and holistic joint geological and medical research effort to understand the interplay of social, demographic, and environmental factors that lead to and can compound negative health effects of drinking water from private wells. While this challenge is not limited to the US Gulf Coast, the focus of this network is on that region due to is particular vulnerability to climate change and growing population. The network involves development of a long lasting, dedicated network of geoscientists, medical/health professionals, state geological surveys, universities, land grant university extension agents, and other stakeholders. The network is broad and covers a geographic region that spans from Arkansas, across the southern Gulf Coast states to the Atlantic Ocean. Committed network members meet regularly, form teams around specific perils to Gulf Coast well water users, develop joint projects for funding by various entities, and work with community and civic organizations to prepare educational materials that disseminate information on practices that can help to ensure safety or private wells used for drinking water. They also devise means that can alert users when their well water could be compromised to help prevent serious health issues.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
