Disheartened...move west

[Andrea]

Hi All,
New here and looking for advice. My husband and I have been talking about moving west for some time. I have been researching borders of WY, ID, MT. We would like to be off grid, but I am finding that many of the ground waters are contaminated from mining, uranium, railways, logging etc. I've been spending hours on line looking at different web pages regarding water quality, air quality, and ground contamination. Does anyone know of a "one-stop" web site with accurate information? Any personal advice regarding locations in these three states? WY is our first chioice, but we are really afraid of ground contamination.

Thanks,
Andrea

[rhodges]

.. but I am finding that many of the ground waters are contaminated from mining, uranium, railways, logging etc.

Who are making these claims?  I have seen a few mines on the map in Crook County, but I have not heard even a word from anyone about ground water contamination.  Would this be metals leached from the tailings, or ...?

At one of the Hulett town meetings a few months ago, they discussed an unusually high molybdenum (or some similar metal) reading in the treatment plant.  It was not really dangerous, just a nuissance that needed to be tracked down.  There was some speculation that it was maybe coming from the sawmill.  Perhaps it was from someone dumping "moly" grease or something similar down the drain.  Anyway, this was in the town drains and not the ground water.  And this is the only mention I have heard about any kind of contaminant around here.

My well water has a lot of iron in it, and one of my neighbors has calcium, but these are easily filtered and treated.  There may be a hint of sulfur too, but we have a reverse osmosis filter for our drinking water and that removes pretty much everything.

Not to be obvious but whoever is claiming the contamination would probably be my first stop to find out more specific information.

[Hunter]

Those claims are made by mostly (.99999999999+%) left wing enviros and other special interest enviro groups. Groups such as Green peace, WWF, REMF, and other anti-mineral consumption orgs. They cannot be trusted. Total distortions of minor truths to out right lies.

Hunter

[rhodges]

Groups such as Green peaceWWF, REMF, and other anti-mineral consumption orgs.

Greenpeace has a wrestling league now?  Cool   When do we see the Seals vs. Dolphins?
(For the humor impaired, yes I know that the World Wildlife Fund made the wrestling guys change their name.)

[Richard]

yeah, I'm sure almost any water from the ground is better than municipal water supply, which I'm pretty sure all over the country add sodium flouride to the water(causes a bunch of bad stuff).  Your gonna want a good filter or something no matter what you do.  I plan on having a retreat off grid also.

lehman's sells a bunch of cool stuff.  They sell a lot to amish people, so of course they have some old fashioned off grid stuff.  They have a good gravity filter for drinking water.

http://www.lehmans.com/jump.jsp?itemType=CATEGORY&itemID=681&iMainCat=681&iSubCat=681 here is their water section

[wyomiles]

Welcome Andrea, any wells that have been drilled in Wyoming are "logged" by the driller and information is sent to the state engineers office. If you have a question about ground water contamination you can ask the state engineer at : http://seo.state.wy.us/ . The Wyoming department of water quality may also be of help at : http://deq.state.wy.us/wqd/index.asp?pageid=5

Have you and yours ever been to Wyoming ? It's a great place. Come to the JAM if you have time .?
 Miles?

[Paul Bonneau]

She might be referring to some of the problems up in Montana, e.g. Clark's Fork and so forth. About the only problem I've heard of in Wyoming has been with the coal-bed methane development, you might see where that is going on. One guy started some methane wells on his ranch in Park County (to support his ranch operations!) and declared the water good (he drank some). Said so in the paper anyway. 

Don't worry, people actually live and even thrive in Wyoming. 

[appaloosablue]

I was talking to a resident in Newcastle.  She said that a lot of people haul water and have a cistern system.  They do this not because of contamination but due to the water table being at 2500+ feet.  She said that it is too expensive for most people to drill wells.  She said that most of the wells in the area belong to cities or small communities.  She did say, however, that if you can reach that water table the water is clean and good to drink.

Brandy

[AmbGun.com]

Best water in the world - Worland, WY. No kidding.

[Paul Bonneau]

Now that you mention it, I have heard about some Wyoming water problems:

Water can be a problem, as you might imagine. Thermopolis town water is pretty fair by Wyoming standards, and purified water is dispensed from machines at the town?s two grocery stores. Water found outside of town, however, is fit mostly for animals and crops. In most places, it takes very deep, very expensive drilling to get human-potable water. As a consequence, you often see pickup trucks with huge white tanks in their beds?ranchers hauling town water to their homesteads for drinking and washing. Some install reverse osmosis water systems.

http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/salinger85.html

Also someone I know near Medicine Bow has water hardly suitable for drinking or watering crops. These are problems with heavy minerals rather than with human-caused pollution.

So yeah, if growing crops is your thing, you will definitely need to get some idea about wells or water rights.

As to air quality, it doesn't get much better than Wyoming. Can actually see the stars at night. "Ground contamination"? Not much. This is a big state with few people.

Of course you might also look to yourself about some of this. It is possible to get worked up over unimportant things, for example "second-hand smoke".     I'm not saying that's true in this case, just something to consider. Western life, especially that out in the boonies, is not really for the faint of heart. You're pretty much on your own, and have to be tough. So I've heard.