Maine Well Water

shotrocker said:

I am old enough to remember when the idea that you could sell water in a bottle was considered insane. or paying more than 25 cents for a cup of coffee.

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Me too...damn am I old LOL

Did you guys know that it is illigal to install your own hydro electric generators on any body of water in Maine, even if it is on your own land? Apperantly the rights to all the rivers and streams in the state of Maine are owned by Florida Power (not positive about the name , but smthing like that)...I wonder which pollititian made that deal and how much he made selling OUR natural resources down the river....

Biological Graffity said:

Did you guys know that it is illigal to install your own hydro electric generators on any body of water in Maine, even if it is on your own land? Apperantly the rights to all the rivers and streams in the state of Maine are owned by Florida Power (not positive about the name , but smthing like that)...I wonder which pollititian made that deal and how much he made selling OUR natural resources down the river....

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It's illegal to impede the flow of water, period. You can actually be fined by DEP for impeding the flow of run-off streams in some cases. As a fisherman, i support this; dams can block fish from necessary resources such as spawning grounds and thermal refuge.

The company you refers to is Florida Power & Light but they don't own anything other than dams - and even then they don't own all the dams in the state but they do own most of the dams in your neck of the woods, BG. Control over hydroelectric projects is delegated to FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission), which can in turn delegate to the State environmental agency, and non-hydro dams are regulated by DEP.

There is actually a large controversy going on now over regulation of the Dead River near the Forks. The State totally missed a deadline in the planning process and, as a result, regulatory oversight has reverted to FERC, which is far more concerned with energy generation than recreational uses such as fishing and, in that area, whitewater rafting. The LaPage administration's original explanation was that it was a simple oversight but documents have surfaced that make it appear to be more of a willful oversight. Time will tell what the actual cost is, but i don't predict good things for the rafting industry or for the fish.

oh man.. i have dozens of rafting friends, people who have been guides for literally a decade or more, and what Brookies is saying is sooo fucking true it's scary.. release numbers dropped to almost nothing because there is no demand, releases at night for no reason, holds on tourism days.. its fucked up.. I don't know about the fish, but the the rafters are dyeing..

People own your dams?

Hey... here in RI you can buy a dam for a dollar. LOL I'm not sure what other privledges come with it other than having to up keep it.... since we have thousands and only a few get attention, even less get looked at each year.

I think it's illegal to impede water here as well and to even un-impede it! LOL A guy was cited a few years ago for clearing brush from a dam because it was blocked and couldn't flow and all the stagnant water was nasty and smelly. You figure he was doing something good right? Nah.

Weird world fellas.

Biological Graffity said:

RO filter usually uses 50% of water that goes in it, the other 50% gets drained away as an impure byproduct...if you keep ur septic full in Maine, it will freeze and back up into the house....not cool!

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Even the most efficient R/O systems have a 2 to 1 rejection rate(2 gallons down the drain for every gallon in the container). And thats with a new filter. The rejectionn rates increases as the filter gets older. Very wasteful. The majority of well water is just fine for growing. You just need to get it tested so you have an idea of what your starting with.

shotrocker said:

I am old enough to remember when the idea that you could sell water in a bottle was considered insane. or paying more than 25 cents for a cup of coffee.

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I remember a .10 cup of joe...lol..kinda makes you realize just how old we're getting.
For the most part when it comes to water Maine is considered the "Saudi Arabia" of water and the majority of artisan wells have pretty good water an easy way to tell if your water is soft or hard is when you soap up, soft water makes it easy to produce a lot of foamy suds and easy to rinse off.. and hard water makes it hard to suds up & hard to rinse off. Hardness, 500mg/L or less is considered "satisfactory"(my well is at 46mg/L). PH, 6.5 to 8.5 is considerd "satisfactory" and the majority of the wells I've dealt with over the years average roughly 7.0PH(mine is at 7.1PH).
Of course there are countless factors that decide on your waters quality and the above is just a "rough average" that I've encountered over the years.

MaineWeed said:

I remember a .10 cup of joe...lol..kinda makes you realize just how old we're getting.
For the most part when it comes to water Maine is considered the "Saudi Arabia" of water and the majority of artisan wells have pretty good water an easy way to tell if your water is soft or hard is when you soap up, soft water makes it easy to produce a lot of foamy suds and easy to rinse off.. and hard water makes it hard to suds up & hard to rinse off. Hardness, 500mg/L or less is considered "satisfactory"(my well is at 46mg/L). PH, 6.5 to 8.5 is considerd "satisfactory" and the majority of the wells I've dealt with over the years average roughly 7.0PH(mine is at 7.1PH).
Of course there are countless factors that decide on your waters quality and the above is just a "rough average" that I've encountered over the years.

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I just ran some tests and my well water is 57 ppm and pH of 7.0. Tested some melted snow also, that came in at 200ppm and a pH of 7.4. (Acid rain?)

snow is high in nitrogen.

mdanforth said:

a ro system makes alot of waste water.....for a gallon of ro you'll get between 4 and 8 gallons of waste water......running a bunch of water into your septic system will cause early failure.....

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Wow. I never knew that. So basically using a ro system with city water could be pretty expensive. Not sure if anyone else out there has gone from free well water to city, sucks

SickofPain said:

I'm on a spring fed well also, and my water is great. I believe my landlord told me this the well on this land is about 300 ft deep. Not 100% positive, but am pretty sure...not sure if depth makes a difference or not.

Peace!!



OK, I was wrong (what else is new lol) this well is not spring fed, but is considered an artesian well in Maine. It is dug to 325 ft, and I guess it bypasses all the ground contaminates, I guess it is suppose to be better than spring fed even

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Most wont go down that deep unless they have to. Gets pretty expensive depending on how deep you have to drill.

Always helps when landlord is a Master Plumber and published author of over 100 books dealing with plumbing & construction. He had it dug so deep because he was able to & wanted to get the best water he could. Am sure there are other reasons (just don't know them)