Contaminated water can cause gastrointestinal illness, and long-term exposure to certain contaminants is associated with more serious effects. The practical response is not alarm — it is testing, because you cannot evaluate risk you have not measured.

The Short-Term Risk: Microbial Contamination

Bacteria, viruses, and parasites are the contaminants most likely to make someone sick quickly. Coliform bacteria, E. coli, giardia, and cryptosporidium cause gastrointestinal symptoms — nausea, cramps, diarrhea — typically within days of exposure.

Municipal water is disinfected specifically to control these, which is what the chlorine residual is doing. On a private well, nothing is treating your water before it reaches you, and microbial contamination is the primary reason annual testing on a well is not optional.

Any flooding near a wellhead should be treated as a contamination event. Test before drinking, regardless of when the last test was.

Nitrates and Infants

Nitrates deserve specific attention because the risk profile is unusual: they are dangerous to infants at concentrations adults tolerate without difficulty.

In babies under six months, high nitrate levels interfere with the blood’s ability to carry oxygen. The condition is serious and it is the reason nitrate testing matters most in households with young children or anyone pregnant.

Nitrates come from agricultural runoff and septic influence, they are odorless and tasteless, and conventional filtration does not remove them. A reverse osmosis system does.

Lead: A Plumbing Problem, Not a Supply Problem

Lead is almost never present in water leaving a treatment plant. It is picked up on the way to your tap — from older service lines, from solder used in plumbing before 1986, and from brass fixtures.

There is no safe level of lead exposure, and children are more vulnerable than adults. It is also undetectable by taste, smell, or appearance.

This is why your utility’s annual report, while useful, does not fully answer the question for your house. Testing at your own tap is what does. Where lead is present, RO at the point of use is the standard residential response, and repiping addresses the source in homes with lead-bearing plumbing.

Other Contaminants Worth Testing For

Arsenic occurs naturally in some groundwater and is associated with long-term health effects. Pesticides and herbicides show up in agricultural areas. Volatile organic compounds can appear near industrial sites or fuel storage.

None of these are common everywhere, and testing tells you whether they are relevant to your property rather than leaving you to worry about a general list.

What Is Not a Health Risk

Being accurate about this matters as much as flagging real concerns.

Hard water is not a health problem. Calcium and magnesium are minerals you consume in food, and they are harmless to drink. Hardness is an equipment and comfort issue — scale, spotting, soap performance — not a safety one.

Cloudy water that clears from the bottom up after a minute is trapped air, and it is harmless. A chlorine smell means disinfection is working, not failing.

We would rather tell you your water is fine than sell you equipment for a problem you do not have.

Testing Is the Answer to All of This

Municipal customers should test at the tap annually and read their utility’s report. Well owners should test annually at minimum, covering coliform bacteria, nitrates, pH, and the aesthetic parameters.

Test additionally whenever you buy a home, after any flooding, after neighborhood water main work, when taste, smell, or appearance changes, or when someone in the household is pregnant.

We test water quality on site so you get results and an explanation in the same visit, and arrange certified laboratory analysis where confirmation is needed.

If Treatment Is Warranted

The equipment follows the finding. Bacteria call for ultraviolet treatment. Nitrates, lead, and dissolved contaminants call for reverse osmosis. Sediment and chlorine call for a whole house water filter. Hardness — a separate, non-health issue — calls for a water softener.

We serve Fredericksburg, Kerrville, Boerne, Comfort, and the surrounding Hill Country. Contact 72 Degrees or call (830) 240-1835.