Colorado’s San Luis Valley offers clues to what the future may hold as drought continues.
“We’re a decade ahead of what’s happening in the rest of Colorado” because of the intensity of water scarcity, said Simpson, who manages the Rio Grande Water Conservation District.,” Simpson said. That’s how scientists are describing a long-term trend toward persistent dryness that can be stopped only by addressing human-caused climate change.
James now aims to test 1,000 private wells in the valley to explore the connections between drought, water quality, and health. So far, she said, a small proportion of wells show elevated levels of heavy metals, including arsenic, uranium, tungsten, and manganese, which occur naturally in the soil. Unlike public water supplies, private domestic wells are not regulated, and they may go untested for years. James is offering participants free water testing and consultation on the results.
As a chemist and laboratory director of SDC Laboratory in Alamosa, Zahringer tests private and public drinking water in the valley. She estimated that 25% of the private wells tested by her lab show elevated arsenic. “Now, more and more rapidly, I’m seeing the same well that I just tested three years ago — it doesn’t even look like the same well” because levels of contaminants have risen so much, said Zahringer, who also serves as a member of the Colorado Water Quality Control Commission. At her own drinking well, the arsenic level jumped from 13 to 20 µg/L this year, she said.
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