Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Water Contamination
If you irrigate with water that is cleaned by the city, it probably isn't overly high in any
of the trace elements, nitrates, salts or microbes such as
E. coli
, so you shouldn't need to
test for that. It doesn't mean that it's high quality water — in fact, most of it isn't. Chlorine,
fluoride and other toxins are generally used to clean it up before it gets to you.
That's why capturing rainwater is so important. Ideally, we would capture all the rainwa-
ter that falls on our roof and run it through a pond or series of ponds that clean it up using
specific aquatic plants and microbes.
Wells and open ponds should be tested. They are all contaminated with pesticides now to
some extent, but some more than others. You can test for some things yourself with special
test strips, such as nitrates and salinity, but I would just get a lab to do that along with all
the other important things. International Ag Labs does this water testing as well as soil and
plant tissue testing.
