Okay, late into the discussion, as usual (just got my home system back up!!)
I'm fortunate to live in the GREAT PACIFIC NORTHWEST (where men are men, and sheep are TERRIFIED), but I guess I've always been fortunate where water quality is concerned.
Oily, don't let this put you off of what you're doing. You appear to be on "higher ground", so the speak, and, since "shit flows downhill", you should be fortunate enough to find the "good stuff" (although it may take a little deeper drilling...trust me, it's worth it!). My mom lives in the Mountains (Republic, Washington) on 24 acres, and, though she's on her 2nd well (the runoff from the mountain streams seems to migrate), the water there is SO cold, and SO sweet, she keeps the filtration to a minimum (something about the altitude and geological features in the area makes it unecessary).
The water in Yakima (which may be the world's largest irrigated desert valley) is all diverted from fresh water rivers & Cascade mountain runoff, plus a little help with added flouridation, and I've yet to run into a glass of fresh tapwater that didn't taste clean & fresh (exception: Rusty shitty plumbing fixtures). For several years, I live in Seattle, which has (according to TIME magazine) some of the best tasting "city water" in the U.S.
Now, the flip side of the coin...
As a child (circa birth to age 14), my parents had occasion to take us to a small, rural region, just Southwest of Yakima (proper) known as "Cottonwood Canyon". They had several families that we spent weekends with (parents drinking Bali Hai, Heidleberg Beer, and playing Pinochle, while the kids ran around playing with rattlesnakes, sheepdogs, and sagebrush), and at least ONE MEMBER (usually 2 or 3) of EVERY FAMILY IN THAT CANYON has died of some type of cancer (lymphoma, lung, liver, skin, colon cancer...you name it, someone out there had it). Now, I know that the good folks of the HANFORD NUCLEAR RESERVATION in Washington State are rumoured to have had some doings out there at some time in the not-so-distant past, but I have yet to find anything conclusive online or anywhere else.
A lot of suicides out that way, as well...one boy stuck a gun in his mouth while standing at the end of the driveway & blew his brains out in the presence of family & friends, because his girlfriend had just "called off" their relationship...a friend of my father's left a note on his bedroom door for his youngest daughter, shortly after his wife of some 40+ years had lost her battle with cancer:
"Don't come in. Go down the driveway and get your Uncle Joe".
So, of COURSE she went in. He'd swallowed the barrel of a shotgun, pulled the trigger with his big toe. Some sort of "organic" brain disorder.
Another note: The kid who blew his head off in the driveway? His sister died 5 years ago (age of 30)...seems she was in the County Jail, on one of those work crews that walk down the shoulders of the county roads & highways (would that be "the verge" for those of you across the pond?) picking up trash, when she found a black duffle bag in a ditch. IN THE DUFFLE BAG was a not-so-modest amount of fairly pure cocaine. So, for whatever reason, she fashioned some plastic containers from the corners of the baggies contained within, as full of coke as she could get them, and swallowed them, hoping to smuggle them inside the jail (barter? favors?) At any rate, at least one (possibly 3, according to the coroner) burst open in her intestine. She died fairly quickly, but DAMN!!
All of these people used well water, wells drilled on their own property.
Rope??
Sorry, Oily...New years Eve, too much stimulation. Had to go there, ya know??