Good Water Not Guaranteed in the North
Most people moving to Alaska do so with a mental picture that includes clear, sparkling, fast-flowing streams in the wilderness. When they have lived here for awhile, the realization gradually sets in that it's not always so.
Granted, Alaska has some of the most beautiful creeks and rivers in the world. But it is often a shock to first-time kayakers, rafters, or river boat travelers to find that these pristine waterways sometimes have the appearance of something they wouldn't want to stick a finger into. Those who decide to stay, build a house and drill a well are often in for even bigger disappointments in water quality.
Fortunately, it's not human habitation that most often causes stream and well water "pollution" (for lack of a better word). It's Nature herself.
Glacial streams, and almost all the larger rivers which they feed, are carrying the maximum amount of glacial silt that they can transport. This causes a hissing which can easily be heard when the tiny particles brush beneath a canoe or raft. It is this suspended load of sediment that led early river travelers to hold the rather silly notion that, if you fell into a silt-laden river, your pockets would fill up with silt and you'd be pulled under. Still, they learned not to drink this liquefied carborundum without risking, at the very least, a visitation of Montezuma's revenge.
Clear streams may harbor the microscopic beaver-fever parasites, Giardia, and even the smaller feeder streams that don't flow from glaciers sometimes appear unsavory. Many have a color like that of tea (Fortymile River, near the Canadian border, is a good example). This leads boaters to wonder if the water is safe to drink, even if they're far from civilization. In most cases, it is. Doug Kane, of the Institute of Water Resources at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, makes the point that the reddish-brown color arises primarily from two sources. The first, which is largely illusory, is that the rocks on the stream bottom have been covered with rust from iron in the water. This tends to give a reddish appearance to the water, particularly if you view it from an airplane flying over the river. The second is that lignin (the chief non-carbohydrate constituent of wood) in the water actually tints it.
Maybe the most frustrating thing about Alaskan water is that when home builders decide to drill a well, they never know quite what to expect. In Ester, the community well has very good water, and people come from miles around to tank up. My family lives maybe 200 yards away from that well. After having our own 220-foot well drilled, we found that the water tasted awful, and that appliances clogged up and wore out within a year or two (additionally, our water had a generous dose of arsenic).
A water softener remedied most of that, but the example points out a factor that should be considered by anyone sinking a well over most of the state--permafrost conditions should be taken into account.
The Ester Community well was located at a site where there is little permafrost, and groundwater circulation is fairly unrestricted. At our location, the well log shows that there is a deep layer of permafrost which is probably capping the water table, restricting circulation, and thereby increasing the concentration of dissolved solids. Further, the groundwater temperature near a permafrost interface is near freezing. The water is therefore more viscous and migrates more slowly than it would at warmer temperatures.
Scientists are now trying to develop cheap, reliable methods of mapping permafrost formations. Such methods, when (and if) they can be brought into practice, will be of benefit to all future builders in the North.
