What Richfield's groundwater program means for your well
The Village of Richfield keeps watch on its groundwater because every home in the village drinks it. The program's findings go a long way toward explaining why a Richfield well is looked after by the people who use it, and by nobody else.
Call (262) 829-5961Mon to Fri, 7am to 5pmWhy a village with no utility watches its groundwater
With no municipal water system, the ground under Richfield is the water supply for every household. The Village's groundwater monitoring program exists because of that, and the Village publishes its results.
Those results describe the aquifers in general terms. They are not a test of any one home's well, and they do not give a hardness figure for any address.
Sand and gravel, close to the surface
The program describes most of Richfield as sitting on sand and gravel that reach up to, or almost up to, the ground surface. Its terms for aquifers in that position are unconfined and semi-confined.
Put simply, there is little sealing the water off from what happens overhead. Groundwater like that answers sooner to whatever goes on at ground level than water held deep in sandstone, which is the reason the Village thought it worth monitoring.
What the program concluded about a public supply
The program's conclusion was that the village had no need to look at a municipal water system. Private wells stay the source for every home.
With no public system, no annual water quality report comes to Richfield homes either. The program watches the aquifers; each household watches its own well.
What it means for your well
Treat every well test as a snapshot with a date on it. Groundwater this close to the surface is the kind the Village chose to monitor, so a report from years back is a weaker guide than a recent one.
For a softener, the number that counts is hardness. For the household, the Wisconsin DNR's advice is to have the well checked for bacteria every year, and nitrate is worth asking the lab about as well; a softener was never meant to treat either one.
Where a softener fits in
A softener trades hardness for sodium, or for potassium if the brine tank holds potassium chloride, and that is all it does. On a Richfield well it is sized from your own hardness reading, because the program, for everything it covers, publishes no number for your address.
Common questions
Where can I read the program's results?
The Village of Richfield publishes its groundwater monitoring results on its website. They describe the aquifers under the village, not your well in particular.
What does unconfined actually mean?
That the aquifer is not sealed under a layer of rock or clay, so it connects with the ground above it. It describes the setting, not the test result of any well.
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