Despite farmers best efforts to reduce the amounts of fertilisers spread on the fields, leaching of Nitrates into the ground is still a problem.
Unfortunately even if Fertiliser use stopped today the levels of Nitrate in ground water could continue to be seen for many years to come.
There are a few ways of reducing Nitrate levels in drinking water to an acceptable level:
- Ion exchange, like a water softener but using a Nitrate specific resin, a useful system for treating large volumes of water.
- Nitrate specific filter cartridges, normally to just feed one additional tap used for drinking water. The small filter housing would be sited under the sink arranged to feed an additional drinking water tap. These system do need strict regular servicing to make sure the captured nitrates do not discharge from an overloaded cartridge.
- Reverse Osmosis is a more practical and more reliable way of providing higher quality water and can give a reduction of Nitrate levels of up to 80%. Small domestic units are normally fitted under the sink, they need a connection to a pressurised water main and also require a connection to waste to rid the system of the contaminants. Because of the slow production rate of these units a 6 Litre storage tank forms part of the system where the product water is held until needed.
