Private Well Water in Cuming County, Nebraska

Elevated nitrate isn't only an irrigator's problem

As the hub explains, Lower Elkhorn NRD's monitoring found elevated nitrate-nitrogen levels in groundwater across Cuming County, largely attributed to agricultural fertilizer and manure application, and the district has moved toward a formal Phase 2 Groundwater Management Area designation here. That designation's added requirements -- nitrogen certification, deep soil sampling, irrigation water testing -- fall on people applying fertilizer, not on a household drawing drinking water from a private well nearby. But the underlying groundwater is the same resource: if nitrate-nitrogen in the aquifer is elevated enough to trigger district-level agricultural restrictions, a domestic well drawing from the same aquifer can carry the same elevated levels, regardless of whether the well owner farms or irrigates at all.

Nitrate above the EPA's 10 parts-per-million drinking-water limit is a genuine health concern, most seriously for infants under six months (it can cause methemoglobinemia, sometimes called "blue baby syndrome," which affects the blood's ability to carry oxygen) and it is also linked in ongoing research to other health risks for adults with long-term exposure. Nitrate can't be seen, smelled, or tasted at levels that matter for health, which is exactly why a lab test -- not a look at the water or a conversation with the seller -- is the only reliable way to know where a specific well actually stands.

LENRD's free domestic well testing program

Lower Elkhorn NRD's board adopted a Domestic Well Sampling Program in the fall of 2022 specifically to help address this gap: the district pays 100% of the cost to test a registered, active domestic well for bacteria, nitrate, and two separate herbicide/pesticide panels. To use the program, the well needs to be registered and listed as active with the Nebraska Department of Water, Energy, and Environment -- a status worth checking (and correcting if it's out of date) as a routine part of evaluating any specific parcel with an existing well in Cuming County. Given that Cuming County is one of the three counties (with Colfax and Dodge) driving LENRD's Phase 2 designation, this free test is a directly relevant, no-cost verification step rather than a generic recommendation -- there's a documented, above-baseline reason to actually use it here rather than skip it.

What to check for a specific parcel

• Whether an existing well on the property is registered and active with the state, and if so, using LENRD's free Domestic Well Sampling Program to test for bacteria, nitrate, and herbicide/pesticide residue before relying on it for drinking water.
• If nitrate comes back elevated: point-of-use treatment options (reverse osmosis and distillation both remove nitrate; boiling does not -- boiling actually concentrates it) and their ongoing maintenance cost, versus connecting to a rural water district line if one is available nearby.
• For a household with an infant or planning one: treat any nitrate result near or above 10 ppm as a health issue to resolve before move-in, not just a water-quality data point.
• Whether the specific parcel falls inside LENRD's proposed Phase 2 boundary -- relevant background even for a non-irrigating buyer, since it signals a documented, above-average risk of elevated groundwater nitrate in that specific area.