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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

> If you use a spring for your water supply, it is a good idea to use a sand 
> prefilter to take out mud, maybe crawdads, pollywogs, killer-whales.  If 
> there is risk of giardia or coliform bacteria, install a separate valve 
> plenum and commercial activated-carbon cartridges in your drinking water 
> faucet.  Here is a schematic of the pipes and valves for a three-tank sand 
> filter.
>
> Sand Filter Piping <http://www.mermade.com/sandfilters/sand_filter_piping.htm>

You engineer types are occasionally useful, but you sure do like to 
complicate things. The sink faucet at Heartwood ran clear even before I 
installed an under-sink ceramic cartridge filter to eliminated the bugs. It 
receives so little particulate that I need brush off its exterior only 
about once each year. I pump directly from the stream and it teems with 
life good and bad, not to mention lots of particulates. At the edge of the 
stream I dug down to bedrock, set and braced upright an eight-foot piece of 
18-inch galvanized culvert pipe with some holes busted in with the pick 
axe. Then I hand washed the biggest stones in the stream and tossed them 
against the pipe. Kept doing that one hot summer day. By the time I got 
down to about fist-size stones, the pyramid around the pipe was about four 
feet high. Then I dumped gravel around the whole thing to within six inches 
of the top and capped it with a plastic garbage can lid, which fits 
perfectly. Ran the water pipe in about eighteen inches down for frost 
protection. The crude filter has worked well for many years. The ceramic 
filter cost about a hundred dollars including piping. Chris doesn't like 
the flavor so I will add a charcoal filter when I go home. As for back 
flushing, I don't. Apparently the large size of the filter does the job; 
the water flows into the check valve so slowly that particulates don't 
migrate inward much. Perhaps microscopic critters eat the particulates. 
Pretty plants also grow there. A living filter maybe, like the designs of 
John Todd, of Living Machine fame.