High nitrates found in some Kansas water wells

WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) — Kansas State University, Barton Community College and Dodge City Community College students and staff have been working on Kansas groundwater quality.

They recently went to Barton, Stafford, Pawnee, Edwards and Rice counties to sample private well water in rural areas not connected to public water supply.

“We reported back to the well owners what we found, and the main things that we found was about half of the wells that we’ve sampled had nitrate concentrations that are considered to be unsafe for drinking water,” Matthew Kirk, KSU associate professor of geology, said.

There are solutions, such as getting a reverse osmosis system and routinely testing water wells each year. Nitrates can be bad for infants and pregnant women especially but can make anyone sick.

Kayanna Hammeke had high concentrations of nitrate in her water without knowing, and she had been having breathing problems since she moved to the property. After learning about her water, she got tests done and learned how the nitrate in her well affected her health.

“It definitely had an impact, and I would have never guessed it was the water I was drinking,” Hammeke said. “Being a farm girl, I trusted the farm well water. You’re always told it’s better than the city water, and it tastes better. And I’m one of those people who drinks a gallon of water every day. And I was, like, literally poisoning myself from it.”

Hammeke lives on a farm, and her well water is now safe, but she is spreading the word to her neighbors that their well water should be tested annually.

“Some people are kind of aware of it, but a lot of people aren’t really thinking about this or having their water tested,” Kirk said. “Any well could be, you know, contaminated. So it’s it’s definitely worth checking out.”

Comparing current research to past research, Kirk says nitrate concentrations have increased dramatically. The main source of the increase is nitrogen-based fertilizers that are applied to crops soils.

“Sometimes people have overapplied unintentionally, so doing practices like nutrient management helps them get a better idea of where chemicals are in their fields and in their soil, and they can make adjustments better when they go to put in their new inputs for new crops where they’re at,” Veronica Coons, Barton County conservation district manager, said. “Also, some of the things like cover cropping can help mitigate some of the issues because they can reduce the amount of herbicides they might be putting on the ground because they are using different practices that help keep weeds from growing, or they can do things like plant different plants that will reach down into the soil and draw nitrogen back up to the root zone for the next group of plants that they grow so they don’t have to apply as much fertilizer. So these are the things people can do to reduce the amount of chemicals that are going into the soil and late being leached down into the groundwater.”

Farmers are trying to figure out what they need to do to maximize their yields in the best way possible.

“I would say a lot of farmers out there are very interested. They want to find ways to lower the amount of inputs that they’re putting into the ground, and they want to do it in a way that is not going to cause their yields to go down,” Coons said.

Coons says what you find in your well may be different than your neighbor’s, depending on your practices and where you sit in the watershed.

“Depending on how deep your well is and where it’s located could have a lot to do with what you find,” Coons said. “And that’s why people who live in these areas are responsible for going and doing the testing on their own wells and doing what they need to do to keep their well water safe.”

Coons says to be aware of abandoned water wells on your property and look at getting them capped.