Wake County Well Water Protection

About the Program

Category: Health (Best in Category)

Year: 2023

In Wake County, 40,000 households — nearly 10% of residents — use private well water for drinking, cooking and bathing. Contaminated well water has the potential to impact resident health. Wake County Water Quality reviews potential groundwater contaminants near residential properties before permitting new private wells. This workflow can be time consuming for staff. Wake County Water Quality and GIS partnered to create the Potential Contaminant Viewer, an easy-to-use GIS application to improve the process. The Potential Contaminant Viewer allows staff to search for a property and buffer by 1,500 feet to review whether one or more of the 25 potential contaminants are within the buffer. The potential contaminant data layers are streamed directly to the application from the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (NC DEQ). Additional GIS data, including geology and extent of public water utilities, are available in the application. The team began using the Viewer in September 2022. In the first six months, Water Quality staff have used the Viewer to screen over 180 sites for potential contamination, saving an estimated 20 hours of research time. The Viewer is being used by Water Quality weekly to reduce research time before permitting private wells. We’ll drink (clean water) to that!