"Janis Elliott started testing the private well water that comes out of the faucets in her home for nitrates after she attended an environmental meeting more than five years ago. Elliott lives in the small unincorporated town of Avon, Iowa not too far south of Des Moines.
Nitrate finds its way into surface and groundwater that eventually becomes drinking water. Studies have linked ingesting too much nitrate in drinking water to cancer and that concerns the retired teacher. Too much nitrate also can cause blue-baby syndrome and birth defects.
She points to neighbors' houses where people have died from cancer. Her husband had prostate cancer (and overcame it).
The Environmental Protection Agency's health standard is 10 parts per million.
One year, the nitrate level got up to 19 parts per million."
