Hand dug wells in Phuket: their properties, construction & sanitation.

This article series offers advice for hand dug water wells and the sanitation and maintenance concerns with this water supply type. We provide advice about what to do when things go wrong, how to inspect hand dug wells for safety, safe practices for actually digging a well, and how to address hand dug well sanitation

Drinking Water - Hand dug wells in Phuket

This questions & answers about constructing, repairing, using hand dug wells in Phuket was posted originally at DUG WELLS, by HAND How to dig, install, maintain & use hand excavated drinking water wells - be sure to see that article series.

Question: what to do about contaminated dug well water in Phuket, Thailand - use chlorine tablets?

2016/09/14 Sky said:

I live in Thailand, on the island of Phuket in a small compound where, as is customary here, each house/bungalow has its own well.
I have a hand dug well.

I am not sure weather it is lined but, the soil here is mostly red clay). At surface/ground level it is covered by a 1 meter concrete lid (covered by decorative pebble stones).

An electrical pump fills a black 2000 litre pvc onion tank buried about 1 meter away from the well.

A second electrical pump pumps the water from the onion into the house (all on ground level, no second floor).

Nobody can drink tap water in this country unless they install a special filtering system.

I have been wondering if I could purify my water (to a degree) by dropping Chlorine tablets into the onion tank (because a. It is easily accessible, b. I know the size so measurement is more precise than trying to chlorinate the well, also I would not be happy to contaminate the soil with chlorine).

I have a pool and regularly buy Chlorine tabs for my pool. I would also like to know if a chlorine tab will corrode PVC.

(If I drop the tablet it will rest on the bottom of the tank, in contact; should I suspend the tablet?)

The water from the well is actually channeled into the onion at surface level sensor being a balloon.
I bought this house of plan and moved in straight after construction.

All taps in the house including the washing machine; during the first year all my whites were pale clay colored and bathwater was so full of clay particles we gave up on baths & Jacuzzi the first year.
Thank you for feedback.

Reply: how to make dug well water safe to drink in Phuket, Thailand

Sky,

Putting aside issues with beach water contamination at Phuket that are much in the news, Phuket's groundwater is, from what I've read, largely contaminated by sewage, from intrusion of sea water, nitrates from fertilizer used on golf courses (depending on where you live), and by metals and by arsenic or possibly other chemicals from the old history of tin mining.

While popular articles about drinking water contamination in Phuket describe sewage contamination as a bacterial hazard I worry that those writers are missing something important; sewage often also contains high levels of heavy metals and other dangerous contaminants.

Phuket groundwater was also contaminated with both ocean water and ground contaminants when Phuket was swept by the 2004 tsunami disaster.

And for Phuket residents who are on a centralized water supply system you still need to be careful. Except for Patong where the distance from point of treatment to point of use is short, even where there is centralized water treatment there are also risks of contamination of the water supply en route between source and user.

It is reasonable to disinfect small emergency-quantities of drinking water using chlorine tablets - as we discuss at inspectapedia.com/water/Drinking_Water_Purification.php

But you will find that that's not practical when you're disinfecting 2000 litres of water.

In addition, I would want to know what else - what other contaminants besides bacteria - are in the drinking water. For example there are some cyst-like organisms (like Giardia) that will not be addressed by disinfection OR you'd have to use so much chlorine (bleach) in the water and you'd have to bring the water to such a high chlorine concentration that the resulting water would be UNSAFE to drink.

And disinfection will not do a thing about chemical contaminants in the water supply. DO NOT rely on swimming pool tablets to make Phuket dug well water "safe" to drink.

We discuss using household bleach as one (of many) methods of disinfecting water - over

at BLEACH DISINFECTANT for DRINKING WATER inspectapedia.com/water/Bleach_Drinking_Water_Purification.php

And at CHLORINATORS & CHARCOAL FILTERS inspectapedia.com/water/Water_Chlorination_Systems.php we discuss the use of more permanently-installed chlorination systems.

You will also want to read about the health effects of drinking chlorinated water

CHLORINE HAZARDS in WATER - see inspectapedia.com/water/Chlorine_Hazards_in_Drinking_Water.php

If you want to make Phuket's groundwater that is taken from dug wells safe to drink you will need to know what contaminants are in the water, what treatments are required to remove them to make the water safe to drink, and you'd need a permanently installed water treatment system that did those treatments economically, reliably, and that was easy to maintain.

Small amounts of water for drinking-only might be provided using reverse osmosis:

see REVERSE OSMOSIS WATER TREATMENT.

Research Studies on Contamination of Drinking Water in Phuket

Supporting my point that you need to know what contaminants are in water before you try to "disinfect" it, is this research

• Baun, A., N. Bussarawit, and N. Nyholm. "Screening of pesticide toxicity in surface water from an agricultural area at Phuket Island (Thailand)." Environmental Pollution 102, no. 2 (1998): 185-190.
• Bech, Michael. "Imposex and tributyltin contamination as a consequence of the establishment of a marina, and increasing yachting activities at Phuket Island, Thailand." Environmental Pollution 117, no. 3 (2002): 421-429.
• Labunska, I., A. Stephenson, B. Erry, D. Santillo, R. Stringer, and P. Johnston. "Heavy metals and other contaminants in bottom ash and fly ash generated by incinerators at Phuket and Samui Island, Thailand." Greenpeace Research Laboratories, University of Exeter. UK (2000).
• REVERSE OSMOSIS WATER TREATMENT
• Szczuciński, Witold, Przemysław Niedzielski, Grzegorz Rachlewicz, Tadeusz Sobczyński, Anetta Zioła, Artur Kowalski, Stanisław Lorenc, and Jerzy Siepak. "Contamination of tsunami sediments in a coastal zone inundated by the 26 December 2004 tsunami in Thailand." Environmental Geology 49, no. 2 (2005): 321-331.
• Srisuphanunt, Mayuna, Panagiotis Karanis, Naowarut Charoenca, Narongsak Boonkhao, and Jerry E. Ongerth. "Cryptosporidium and Giardia detection in environmental waters of southwest coastal areas of Thailand." Parasitology research 106, no. 6 (2010): 1299-1306.
  Bech, Michael. "A survey of imposex in muricids from 1996 to 2000 and identification of optimal indicators of tributyltin contamination along the east coast of Phuket Island, Thailand." Marine Pollution Bulletin 44, no. 9 (2002): 887-896.
• WATER CONTAMINANT LEVELS & LIMITS
• WATER TREATMENT EQUIPMENT CHOICES - home

Reader follow-up: what about the safety of using Phuket water for bathing?

2016/09/15 Sky said:
Thank you for feedback and info sources regarding Phuket water & studies.(I have homework! Lol)

I will share with neighbors
I guess avoid ingesting is the best solution.

Last question:
Is Phuket well water at least safe to shower/bathe in? And wash dishes?

Moderator reply: water contaminant & microbiological standards for water safe for bathing

I'm still researching an authoritative answer to your question about the safety of Phuket's bathwater (not sea-bathing not swimming water) in Phuket. Here's what I have so far:

Short answer: taking a bath or shower in Phuket, Thailand

I don't know, but here's what we have learned so far:

You should not use the hand dug well water supply you describe in Phuket for drinking nor for brushing teeth. There might also be hazards from bathing in unsanitary water, depending on what biological, organic, or inorganic contaminants are present and the level at which they are found.

The hazards of bathing in sewage or bacteria-contaminated water are probably increased if the bathwater is heated, and there might be hazard of breathing micro-droplets of contaminated water when showering. So some form of bathwater filtration and disinfection may be recommended. Use soap.

If you are bathing an infant be sure that the baby doesn't drink the bathwater.

If you have your water tested so that you know what contaminants and at what levels are present that will inform you better than more speculation and it would also inform us about what level of water filtration and treatment would make bath water safe in your Phuket home.

Check with a water test lab who has familiarity with water in your area, as such a lab will know what contaminants are commonly found and thus what to look for. Keep in mind that the level of contaminants in surface water and thus in dug well water will vary seasonally.

Other sources that we reviewed and that discussed municipal water supplies for cities such as Bangkok assert that that supply is safe for bathing.

Details about bathwater in Phuket:

Water for bathing, washing and personal hygiene need not be of the same quality as that used for drinking and cooking purposes. (Rogers et al 1997). But in Thailand, the total coliform standard of 1000 MPN/100ml to define [safe] bathing water is considered to be too general (Wong 1998). In reviewing standards for safe bathing water it's also important to distinguish between sea-bathing and personal bathing or washing of bodies & clothing.

However depending on what organic and inorganic contaminants are present, bathwater that is contaminated could be unsafe.

For example in areas of high radon in water (not Phuket), radon levels produced during showering can be high, and in areas where a private water supply used for bathing is high in chemical contaminants, those may be absorbed through the skin during bathing. Airborne contaminants produced by a shower an be inadvertenly inhaled during shower-bathing.

When there are bacterial hazards in water, those may be actually increased by use of a water heater.

Warming or heating water may increase bacterial growth and further, the water heater tank itself can become a bacterial breeding ground. For this reason, treating and filtering bathwater water before it is heated by a water heater is recommended if the water supply is not sanitay, and in some countries such as Japan that filtering or treatment is required by law. (Kobayashi 2016).

Some of the studies I cited earlier and others cited below refer to bacterial hazards when bathing in beaches at Phuket where discharge of sewage into the ocean is a concern. For
compliance 80% of samples should not exceed the guide level and 95% should not exceed the imperative level. Barrel et al. ( 2000) note that

Epidemiological research on the effects on health of swimming at bathing beaches has shown that swimming in bathing beaches carries some risk of illness even when the beach complies with existing legislative standards1,28-31.

The risk to health increases in proportion to the amount of faecal pollution as measured by indicator organisms (figure 1), but the bacterial indicator most strongly associated with risk to health seems to be the enterococcus count. ...

For compliance 80% of samples should not exceed the guide level and 95% should not exceed the imperative level. (Barrell 2000). 

The standards for allowable bacterial contamination in bathing water varies by country and published standard and also by the type of bathing waters. While standards and water quality vary across Thailand and again in Phuket, in Bangkok, for example, the Metropolitan Waterworks Authority follows the World Health Organisation standards for providing safe drinking water.

Standards for swimming facilities are different from standards for home bathing in showers or tubs. Standards for safe swimming water (swimming baths, spas, hydrotherapy, and beach water) vary also by the contaminant-parameter: the type of organism: E. coli, pseudomonas aerguinosa colony counts, etc. Typically for a swimming bath (not the same as a bath tub or shower) E. coli should be 0/100 colony forming units / mL while in seawater a typical guide for faecal coliforms is 100 / 100 mL CFUs. (Barrell 2000). 

• Barrell, R. A., P. R. Hunter, and G. C. D. P. H. Nichols. "Microbiological standards for water and their relationship to health risk." [PDF] Commun Dis Public Health 3, no. 1 (2000): 8-13. Retrieved 2016/09/15, original source: http://martechnicltd.com/sales/docs/LGL_Microbiological_Standards_forWater_HPA.pdf
• Bhatia, R. and S.K. Raheja, 1996. Multiple Uses of Water: A Research Proposal. Submitted to IIMI, Draft.
• EcheverriaP, Taylor DN, Seriwatnana J, et al. Potential sources of enterotoxigenic Esherichia coli in homes of children with diarrhoea in Thailand.
  Bull World Health Organ. 1987; 65: 207-215.
• ESCAP, 1990; Venugupal, 1994 - Water quality standards for Thailand.
• Kobayashi, J., K. Ikeda, and H. Sugiyama. "Variation of Inorganic Compounds in Home Bath Water." Int J Pub Health Safe 1, no. 104 (2016): 2.
  Abstract:
  
  Bath water is heated to warm the body, and in Japan it is used to remove cleaning agents from the skin before entering the bathtub. It is assumed that the water does not enter the body during bathing. However, in a shower, water can be unintentionally inhaled as an aerosol.
  
  Water could also enter the body through wounds in the skin. In public baths, used water may not be replaced with fresh water for several days, and this could result in spread of infectious diseases.
  
  Bacteria can grow in water heaters if they are not cleaned properly, and the addition of inorganic compounds to the bath water from the water source or the skin of bathers can be thought to promote bacterial growth. Many bacteria can grow in soil [1,2], and in a bathroom, bacteria in the bath water will circulate throughout the water heater where they could adhere and grow. Consequently, filtration of water before it enters the water heater is a requirement at large public baths in Japan [3]. H
  
  owever, many home bathrooms in Japan are equipped with small cyclical type boilers that re-heat bath water without filtration, and bacteria could multiply in these systems [4,5]. It is a Japanese custom to soak in a bathtub after cleaning the body outside of the bathtub, and the water is re-used for subsequent baths. If you wash the body in the home bathtub, dirt adheres to the pipe between the water heater and bathtub. So this pipe is difficult to wash, bring the risk of contaminating the dirt at the time of the next bathing. As a result, other than the part of the unit bath, it is not possible to wash the body in the bathtub.
  
  This custom may increase the risk for contracting such illnesses compared with in other countries. Sekine et al. showed that bacteria such as Legionella, require inorganic compounds for growth [2,6]. She added trace elements to the agar medium, and checked the increase and decrease of bacteria. It is thought that this demand nature is naturally maintained also in the bathroom, the inorganic compounds may be required for growth of bacteria in bath water.
  
  This is considered to lead to prevention of infectious diseases. In order to prevent bacteria infection, daily water quality testing is important. In this study, as a model case of circulating bath, we examined the change in hygiene and chemical composition of the bathtub water in various conditions.
  
  Changes in the concentrations of inorganic compounds home bath water in Japan were investigated as the number of days the water was re-used for bathing increased. The relevance of these results to growth of bacteria was considered.
• Mintz, Eric D., Fred M. Reiff, and Robert V. Tauxe. "Safe water treatment and storage in the home: a practical new strategy to prevent waterborne disease." Jama 273, no. 12 (1995): 948-953.
  Abstract:
  
  In many parts of the developing world, drinking water is collected from unsafe surface sources outside the home and is then held in household storage vessels. Drinking water may be contaminated at the source or during storage; strategies to reduce waterborne disease transmission must safeguard against both events.
  
  We describe a two-component prevention strategy, which allows an individual to disinfect drinking water immediately after collection (point-of-use disinfection) and then to store the water in narrow-mouthed, closed vessels designed to prevent recontamination (safe storage).
  
  New disinfectant generators and better storage vessel designs make this strategy practical and inexpensive.
  
  This approach empowers households and communities that lack potable water to protect themselves against a variety of waterborne pathogens and has the potential to decrease the incidence of waterborne diarrheal disease.
• Patmasiriwat, D. et.al.: Full Cost Water and Wastewater Pricing: A Case Study of Phuket, Thailand, Thailand Development Research Institute, August 1995.
• Rogers, Peter, Ramesh Bhatia, Annette Huber, "Water As A Social And Economic Good: How To Put The Principle Into Practice." [HTML] RDV Core Training Program FY98 Activity 2.2, (1997) retrieved 2016/09/15, original source: http://jzjz.tripod.com/watroger.html
• WHO, "Water Quality Requirements" [PDF], retrieved 2016/09/15, original source: http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/resourcesquality/wpcchap2.pdf
• Wong, Poh Poh. "Coastal tourism development in Southeast Asia: relevance and lessons for coastal zone management." Ocean & Coastal Management 38, no. 2 (1998): 89-109.

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The links below provide the details of how to dig and construct a hand dug water well.

• HAND DUG WELLS - home
• HAND DUG WELL PROCEDURE
  • SAFETY WARNINGS for WELL DIGGERS
  • BUILD A HAND DUG WELL
  • DECIDING TO DIG a WELL: QUESTIONS
  • CHOOSE WELL LOCATION & DIGGING METHOD
  • BEGIN DIGGING THE WELL
  • SUSPEND DIGGING THE WELL: WET SEASON
  • WELL RINGS: WHEN TO USE or OMIT
  • DUG WELL DEPTH: HOW DEEP IS ENOUGH?
  • DUG WELL WATER QUANTITY: HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH?
  • WELL ARCH: BUILDING
  • WELL SAFETY WALL & COVER
  • DUG WELL POTABILITY TEST
  • DUG WELL SANITATION PROTECTION
• HAND DUG WELL WATER in PHUKET

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