Can swamp water get into our drinking water?

Question

I just bought a house a couple months ago when the ground was covered with 2 feet of snow. Now that spring has spring there is a swamp behind my house in a big field that somebody else owns and has up for sale, with cattails,moss and bull frogs croaking, the whole swamp thing. Come to find out from a neightbor down the road that it is there all spring summer and fall long. This is disturbing to me because it is still water and it is very trashy and dirty and begins a few feet from my backyard property line . Along with the bugs and mosquitoes and smell I will have to deal with in the summer I am also worried that that water could somehow seep into our drinking water for my house and contaminate it. Does anyone know if this could happen and how I would find out if it does happen? I would never have bought the house if I had known about the swamp.

Answer 1

depends on da watr. city watr: no but wll wtr: yes.

Answer 2

What is the source of your drinking water? If it is piped from the local municipality, that could only happen if you had cracked pipes. If you have a pump, then the water you are drinking could get some of the "swamp water" in it if it is not designed properly.

Answer 3

So what if it gets into your well? The water will be filtered by the soil it passes through. It may also be purer than the ground water that comes from farther away.

Not that it matters to you, but you described a marsh, rather than a swamp; swamps have woody vegetation.

If nobody minds your harvesting from your neighbor's marsh, you can get a pretty fair proportion of your food from it. Almost every part of the cattail is edible at some time of the year and bullfrogs are pretty good eating too. You may as well come to terms with it; a wetland can't be developed, so it is not likely to sell.

Next time, exercise "due dilligence" before buying property. There are experts who will inspect houses and property for you for a few hundred dollars. You can usually get that money back by re-negotiating the purchase price to adjust for the defects you did not find yourself.

Answer 4

That depends on what type of water supply you have.  If you are on the city, county, etc. water system, then no you have nothing to worry about.  However, if you use a well there is a small chance for water contamination, just as there would be at any well location.  In reality, swamps are a great natural filtration system for ground water.  If it worries you, you can always have you water tested every 6 months to a year, or anytime you suspect there could be contamination.

Answer 5

if you are on municipal water line than you have no problem,if you are on a well and the ground water gets into the well you could contaminate the water supply if you live in Canada you must have heard of Walkerton the community that had contaminated ground water get into the system was untreated and killed a number of people and has caused kidney problems for many others.Drinking water is nothing to mess around with if from a well GET it tested and install a GOOD filtration system either UV light or chlorine injection system