Bad Water to Good

So many things for the Urban Girl to learn.
When you live with municipal water, you don't think about it much. You turn the tap on / start the washing machine / flush the toilet and there it is... clean, odourless (usually), ready to use. Living in the city, we had always tried to be conservative in our water use, but I had never realized how tricky it is to TREAT water before it gets to the tap.
Now we live in an area with notoriously bad water. Not dangerous water (ie disease or bacteria carrying) but bad. Hard. Sulphur and iron rich. Smelly. Dark and yucky. Our well, while reliable and deep, coughs up this stuff which, untreated, would frighten anyone off. So we have a complicated treatment system in the basement.
I'm still learning the fine details. The pump pulls the water in to a holding tank which leads to a tank which takes out the iron and sulphur. From there it goes to the softener, which adds salt to the water (the amount is in direct relationship to the hardness of the water, which I think is based on the minerals in the water?). From there is goes to the ultra-violet light which kills any bacteria still in the water (a popular addition to most treatment systems as we can't rely on the safety of the water table anymore...). From there is it pumped to the taps.
The system that came with our house is old. There is so much salt in our water, after treatment, that the dish rack has deposits of salt leftover in the catch pan after the dishes have dried. Our dishes and counters all have white spots on them and you can taste the salt on glasses. The shower curtain looks the way your car looks by the end of a winter driving on salted roads - all undulating waves of salt marks. The good thing about it is that it makes our hair soft without conditioner, but that's about it.
I can't drink the water - it's too salty. I was raised on softened water, so it's not new for me, but this is crazy. The Culligan Man says that it the salt in the water is in direct relation to the hardness of the water coming in and did I mention that our water is HARD?
It's not just the taste that worries me. All that salty water is draining into our septic tank, which is in precarious health as it is (more on that another time). It seems to me that the bacteria in the septic system can't function well with that much salt in their environment. Not only is the water from the waste pipes draining in, but the softening system 'regenerates' itself which flushes water into the septic tank. Apparently code won't let us divert that flushing somewhere else (ie the grass or the cedar stand near the house) in an effort to spare the bacteria in the tank, but even if it would, could the grass or cedars survive the onslaught of salt?
So we had the Culligan Man come yesterday for a consultation. We're going to try to install a new softener, one that will apparently function better and so will not only require less salt to do its work, but will leave less salt in the water in general. Then we're having a reverse osmosis system installed in the kitchen for drinking water. We've been bringing in big bottles of water for drinking, and that is not only expensive but it seems wasteful considering we have safe (if salty) water. So it seemed that over a few years, the initial cost of the RO system should balance out the cost of the water purchases (not to mention the driving to and from the store and the bottles of water we buy when we're out of the house).
If you've lived with this method of bringing water to your glass or pot or shower, you're likely wondering what I'm making a fuss about. But for someone who has had 20 years of thought-free water, it's a new thing to learn about. And it's hard to find any information about well water treatment in general, especially in books promoting 'green' living. I may sound to be over-thinking this, but what effect does the salt have on the septic system ( a living thing)? What does that much salt do to our bodies, when we cook with the water and use it for coffee and such?
So the new tank and the RO system come in next week. I'm hoping to see a difference. I'm also hoping to find some kind of "Well Water for Dummies" references - before the treatment system comes the well, which is the lifeblood of the house. It would be good to master the art of water stewardship!

And finally, an update on Autumn - yesterday she flopped down onto the gravel in the driveway, stretched onto her side and rubbed her face in the gravel, like a relaxed and happy cat. It's very exciting!