Why our Borehole taste salty or are tasteful.

For the sake of an easy approach and understanding because of the technicalities and discipline in this issue, I will be succinct and straight forward, using easy terminologies to enlighten us.

Water
A good Water is supposed to be pure, odourless, colourless with no element more than Hydrgen oxide (H2O). In this part we will only look at the groundwater or known as Borehole water.

A Borehole water is an extracted groundwater from a drilled holes from the surface of the earth beneath the earth surface for domestic, human consumption or social usage.
For the purpose of domestic use in our homes, these Boreholes are supposed to give us good and healthy water, as underground water has been known to be the purest form of water. However, it is inevitable to deny that some of our Boreholes tastes like salt or potash in them. I will make highlight of why such things happen and recommend a remedy.

What Happened?
[Inorganic salts]
When your Borehole water has a taste of salt, potash or tasteful, you should know that the water has an inpure susbstance in it, some geoscientist and other related fields found out that the following cations and anions are the impurities found in tasteful waters namely, DS (dissolve solids), Fe2+, K+, Ca2+, Na+, Mg2+, Zn2+, F+, Cl-, NO3, SO4 and so on. Mostly these kinds of inorganic salt are found inside the Borehole's parent rock inside the well, or another rock within the well , or from outside the well.

There is a rock underground that host this water, not all the rocks can store water and give out, so the ones beneath the earth, that store or allows the movement of water is called an aquifer.

However, some of the reasons why our Boreholes/wells around us taste salty or tasteful can be narrowed into these;

1. Geogenic (naturally occurring from the well with inorganic salts from the formation of the rocks)
2. Sewage and sewage sludge ( borehole closed to soakway or relational in heights.
3. Shallow drilling or wells/Borehole into clayey or losed rocks.
4. Infolw of fertilizers or pesticides into the wells or infiltration into the wells.
5. Drilling into a weathered or mineralized zone.
6. Intrusion of salt water from sea and lake above or below water table.

NB: If you drill your Borehole into a shallow depth of clayey, mineralized zone or losed rocks, prepare to drink salty water except otherwise.

Not all tasty or tasteful Borehole water are dangerous, monitoring bodies like the WHO, NSDWQ, USEPA and others has an approved levels of values that allows us to drink such waters. So do your water analysis to know it's level.

[b][/b]What should be done /Possible Solutions?

1. Make sure you consult an expert to do your survey especially if people around you complains of salty water or problem of particles in their Borehole.

2. All experst in the field (Geologist, Hydrogeologist, Geophysicist and others) must ensure a good survey to delineate areas or depth with possible problems. Lower resistivities depicts conductive zones. So you can explain to your client.

3. Avoid shallow drilling a shallow well into loose layers of rocks/overburden, and heed to the experts Instructions.

4. Block all waters that will have impurities from entering into the well, (blind case) or do a deeper search.

5. Don't manage a Borehole except otherwise.

6. Don't drink borehole water that it's taste is awful, smelly and uncontrollable in the mouth, that shows high impurities.

7. Treat the water prior to the water analysis to know what chemicals are in for treatment, especially, if it's for drinking, poultry business or farming that does not need hard water.

8. The easiest form of treatment for those in rural areas is BOILING, the whitish left overs in the pot are the chemicals in them.

CONCLUSION/RECOMMENDATION

Some areas naturally have that kind of water especially in the Eastern and southern zone of Nigeria but with low occurrences in the middle and Northern Nigeria.
These can also be dodged in the case of Lekki and Beach in Lagos State, Nigeria. Deeper Boreholes have produced good water.

If your budget is not up to the work, you can treat the water as well. Because water is very essential in life.

Remember, not all water are free of impurities, only that some are not destructive to our health, while others are especially when they are obvious.

Nice read.