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Arsenic and uranium
Arsenic And Uranium,
Matched To Real Numbers
Arsenic and uranium occur naturally in Idaho groundwater, and Canyon County wells are the ones we flag most often. Neither has a taste, a smell or a color, so a well can seem perfect and still carry a load. We run a full lab panel before we quote a single piece of equipment.
Meridian based. Ada, Canyon and Gem counties are our core area, plus Elmore, Payette, Owyhee, Boise, Valley and Washington by arrangement.
Some of this was here
long before the well was drilled
Arsenic and uranium in Treasure Valley wells are not a spill or a factory leak. They come out of the rock itself. Idaho geology holds both, and water moving slowly through certain formations picks them up over years and years. That is why they cluster geographically instead of turning up everywhere. Canyon County wells read positive more often than most, and two wells a mile apart can come back very differently depending on what the water passed through on its way up.
Because the source is the ground and not a pipe, city treatment is a separate matter. Municipal systems in Boise, Meridian and Nampa are disinfected, monitored and reported. A private well answers to nobody but its owner, so if arsenic or uranium is present, the only way anyone finds out is a test at that specific well.
Why one test at drilling is not enough
A well tested once when it was drilled tells you what the water was doing that week, possibly years ago. Conditions move. Idaho came into 2026 off one of the warmest winters since records began in 1896, with snowpack at or near record lows, and less snowmelt recharging the aquifer means the same mass of arsenic and uranium sits dissolved in less water. Concentration climbs even though nothing new was added underground. The valley is also one of the fastest growing regions in the country, with more households drawing on the same aquifers every year. Water that read fine a while back can read differently now, and the only way to catch that is to measure again.
Neither one gives you
a reason to worry on its own
This is the part that unsettles people. Hard water announces itself: scale on the kettle, spots on the glass, soap that will not lather. Iron stains laundry orange. Sulfur smells like a struck match on a hot afternoon. Arsenic and uranium do none of that. No taste, no odor, no cloudiness. Water that looks clean and drinks clean can carry either one, which is exactly why an owner who trusts their senses alone is betting blind.
We treat this as a lab question from the start. At the free test we run the field panel right at your kitchen sink, hardness, chlorine or chloramine, iron, dissolved solids and pH, and read it out with you at the counter. Arsenic and uranium are not field-kit numbers. Those samples go to a certified lab, because the treatment you build depends on the exact figure and the exact form, and a color-change strip cannot give you either one.
What a real panel changes
Once the lab report is back, the design stops being a guess. We know whether uranium is present, roughly at what level, and whether the arsenic is the form a membrane will reject cleanly or the form it will let slip. That report decides the sequence of the equipment, and the sequence is what makes the equipment actually work.
Canyon County wells are where we find naturally occurring arsenic and uranium most often.
Treatment follows the lab report,
not the label on the box
There is no single machine that quietly handles everything a well can carry, and anyone who tells you a softener will take out arsenic or uranium is selling, not testing. A softener exchanges hardness minerals, calcium and magnesium, and it is very good at that one job. It does nothing for these two metals. What actually removes them depends on which one you have and on how the water is prepared before it reaches the barrier.
| What the lab found | What removes it | The catch we plan for |
|---|---|---|
| Arsenic, drinking tap | Reverse osmosis, prepared correctly | Trivalent arsenic carries no charge and slips a membrane, so we oxidize it first |
| Arsenic, whole house | Adsorptive media | Media life depends entirely on the water chemistry running ahead of it |
| Uranium | Anion exchange | Responds well, but the resin has to be sized and sequenced to the number |
| Hardness alongside | Softener, ion exchange | Handles calcium and magnesium only, never the metals |
| The order of it all | Pre treatment, then the barrier | Install blind and even good equipment underperforms |
Why we oxidize arsenic before the membrane
The well that read high after the fix
We pulled a sample from a rural Canyon County well that came back flagged for arsenic. Reverse osmosis under the kitchen sink, we thought, retest in a few weeks, done. The retest still showed arsenic. The membrane was fine, the pressure was fine, the install was clean.
The problem was chemistry, not hardware. Arsenic occurs in two forms, and the trivalent form carries no charge, so a membrane lets a meaningful share pass straight through. Oxidize it first and it converts to the pentavalent form, which the membrane rejects properly. We added an oxidation stage ahead of the membrane and the next report came back where it should have been. You do not treat a well on the name of the contaminant alone.
"A well can taste like the best water you have ever had and still carry arsenic. That is the whole reason we send the sample out. I would rather spend the lab fee than guess and put a family on equipment that was never going to hit the number."
We are an authorized dealer for Hague Quality Water, part of the A.O. Smith family, patented and made in the USA, so when a part is needed in a few years it exists and we can get it. And if the build the lab report calls for is more than the budget wants to absorb at once, the rental program covers it: same equipment, same install standard, paid over time. Budget has never been a good reason to keep drinking water you would not accept if you could see what was in it.
What people ask us about arsenic and uranium
No charge, no obligation
Find out what your
well is really carrying
Thirty minutes at your kitchen sink, with the arsenic and uranium samples sent to a certified lab. We test across Ada, Canyon and Gem counties, plus Elmore, Payette, Owyhee, Boise, Valley and Washington by arrangement. Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm, weekends by appointment.