Is Your Drinking Water Safe?

Drinking Water QualityIf you have a private drinking water well in Massachusetts, you probably have questions about what could contaminate your water and how you would know. The federal government has no authority to regulate the safety of private drinking water wells and neither do many state government agencies. In Massachusetts, the responsibility for safe drinking water from private wells usually falls on the homeowner. Read our section on when you should test your well water to find out if it is time to test your drinking water.

Massachusetts Drinking Water Tests

You can test your drinking water for individual contaminants such as lead and coliform bacteria, or you can test for a variety of contaminants at once with drinking water test packages.

image of clean drinking water

The standard drinking water package tests for alkalinity, arsenic, calcium, chloride, coliform bacteria, conductivity, corrosivity, fluoride, hardness, iron, lead, magnesium, manganese, nitrate, nitrite, orthophosphate, pH, sodium, sulfate.

Title V Drinking Water Test Package

If you have both a private well and a septic system in Massachusetts, you probably have to comply with Title 5 of the State Environmental Code, 310 CMR 15.000. NEL, Inc. offers a Title 5 Drinking Water Test Package which tests for VOC, total coliform bacteria, ammonia, and nitrate. We have other Title V test packages too as governed by many cities and towns in Massachusetts. Contact the lab for details.