Sulfer Water

Some of you folks seem to have experience with all sorts of things. Maybe you know something about this?

I was up at my in-laws house in the Catskill Mountains near Woodstock, NY this weekend. The house draws water from a private well, and all of the water smells horribly of sulfer. A rotten egg sort of smell.

They've had the well tested, and there's no harmful bacteria or anything in it. However, nobody wants to drink the water. Currently, they keep a supply of bottled water around for drinking, but obviously this is not a great long-term solution.

Anyboy know if sulfer water is OK to drink in a pinch? Or even better, what type of system you'd need to get the sulfer smell to go away? If would sure make spending time there much less of a hassle.

Thanks!

Aerating the water will help, ozone injection would be better. Depending on the strength of the solution, most likely H2S, it ought to be okay to drink, but I'd have to see the lab results to know for sure.

Yellowstone smells like that at pretty near every water hole.

The water on my property is the same way. Turn on the hose and plug your nose. My pig drank it for a year with no ill-effects, as did my chickens. I even took a few swallows during the summer when I was working outside and forgot to bring a canteen. Didn't kill me, obviously. Didn't even make me sick. Now, whether or not I get cancer in 20 years, that's yet to be seen.

Tell them to try boiling it then refrigerating it.

I was in a campground with my son, the water smelled like rotten eggs. We boiled some for coffee and it killed the sulfur smell. Did it again and pored the boiled water into a Nalgene bottle ( after it cooled a bit) and put it in the cooler, it tasted fine and had no smell at all.


No idea why it worked to get rid of the egg smell or if it will work in all places, but it’s worth a try for them.

Yeah, sounds like a tiny hint of H2S (hydrogen sulphide). I grew up with water like that. It's annoying but basically harmless at those concentrations. (If you can't smell it, you're in danger. Crazy stuff.)

From wikipedia FWIW: "Hydrogen sulfide can be present naturally in well water. In such cases, ozone is often used for its removal. An alternative method uses a filter with manganese dioxide. Both methods oxidize sulfides to less toxic sulfates."

I seem to recall that filling a jug/canteen about 80% with water, closing and shaking vigorously, and then leaving the container open to the air for a while would tone down the sulphur smell somewhat.

Funny thing is, we got used to it. When I moved to a city, the smell of chlorine in the water would make me gag.

Contact your local Cooperative Extension Office and ask for some advice.

Cooperative State Research, Education & Extension Offices in the U.S.:
http://www.csrees.usda.gov/Extension/index.html

Sue

I know a family whose home has had sulfur water for decades and the only apparent consequential damage was a shortened life expectancy for electronic devices (stereo, TV, computer, refrigerator, etc.).

It may not be minerals in the water. In my home in Maine we had a similar problem. Caused by some sort of critter in the well. We used a strong bleach solution and purged the well. It became a once a year project. No further problems.

Consult your local water control folks, University or similar for the proper procedure. Not a big deal.

Nomad are you retired? If not how do you survive moving around?

The nomadic lifestyle sounds appealing (seeing the country, only seeing snow when watching TV.) other then the lack of income.