Did you know, in Michigan, the Safe Drinking Water Act does not regulate private wells that serve less than 25 people? This means that it is up to the private well owner to make sure the drinking water is safe.

Clean drinking water is essential to our health. However, water can become contaminated with bacteria found naturally in the environment or with human-made chemicals from industrial waste and fertilizers.

District Health Department #10 (DHD#10) has an in-house drinking water lab located at the DHD#10 Mason County office. Here, drinking water testing and analysis are performed for the bacteria known as coliform, including E. coli, as well as for nitrates, which are human-made chemicals often used in fertilizer. DHD#10 also can test surface water from lakes, rivers, and streams for E. coli.

How does it work?

Just stop into any DHD#10 office in your area to pick up a water testing kit. You can have both bacterial analysis and chemical analysis performed, or just one or the other.

Bacterial Testing Kit: Cost = $20 – All bacterial testing kits come with a sample bottle and a pre-addressed envelope to mail the sample back.*

Nitrate Testing Kit: Cost = $20 – All nitrate testing kits come with a sample bottle, pre-addressed envelope, gel pack and cooler to send your sample back.*

*If you are performing both the bacterial and the nitrate tests, you can send both sample bottles inside the cooler provided for the nitrate test.

For more information on how to collect and return a water sample, please visit https://www.dhd10.org/homeowners/%20drinking-water-testing/or call your local health department office at 888-217-3904.