Water School

No water is completely pure. Contaminates, both naturally occurring and manmade, occur at differing levels depending on your location throughout the world. In the United States, federal and state regulations set standards for the maximum amount of contaminants allowed for water to be considered safe for drinking. Regulated contaminants include a variety of microbes and substances that at certain levels could cause adverse health effects.Though most treated drinking water is safe for consumption,...

  Runoff is the portion of precipitation that doesn’t soak into soil and instead moves from land to streams or other surface water. Runoff can be caused by precipitation, snowmelt and irrigation that the Earth does not soak up. There are three types of runoffs. They include:•    Surface Runoff: Water after precipitation merges with streams or surface water•    Subsurface Runoff: Water soaks into the soil and merges into the water table, the...

Water drawn from rivers, lakes stream and other bodies of water as well as groundwater can be contaminated and could make you sick if you drink it without treating it first. Waterborne diseases, caused by microorganisms that live in untreated water, can cause diarrhea, nausea vomiting and other symptoms, and in extreme cases, death.Many of these pathogens infect water through contact with human and animal feces, carried there by runoff or seeping into the water supply from leaking sewage or sept...

The Texas Legislature created the Clean Rivers Program in 1991 when it passed the Texas Clean Rivers Act. Legislators’ goal was to push Texas towards comprehensive water planning and management to ensure the future quality of the water supply.The state designated the Brazos River Authority as the lead agency to conduct water quality assessment and Clean Rivers Program (CRP) planning in the Brazos River watershed. Every one to three months depending on location, the BRA tests water for everythin...

An outhouse, commonly referred to as a privy in the Texas Statutes, is a type of toilet without plumbing in a small building separated from a main structure. Instead of being connected to a sewer or septic system, an outhouse sits over a pit.In an outhouse however, bacteria that thrive in oxygen break down the waste, with help from other natural processes. Eventually the pit fills, is covered with dirt and the outhouse is relocated.Under Texas law, an outhouse may not be built within 75 feet of ...

Fecal coliform bacteria is one of a collection of relatively harmless bacteria that live in the intestines of all warm blooded animals including humans.  These bacteria normally aid in the digestion of food then pass through the intestines as part of fecal waste.When aquatic systems are contaminated by human or animal feces, the fecal coliform bacteria (the most common form being Escherichia coli or E coli) can cause a number of waterborne diseases includi...