“Is my water safe”?
“Is it drinkable?”
“Can you tell me what’s in it?’
Unfortunately, there is no single test that determines any of these things.
Truth be told, testing of water doesn’t involve a black box where we put a sample of water into an instrument, and it tells us everything that is present. Testing requires many different methods and instruments to determine the amounts of different analytes.
Some methods provide information on many similar analytes, while other methods only provide information on a single analyte.
For example, a Coliform Bacteria test is very important to a private well owner, indicating whether a well is bacterially safe. However, it won’t tell us anything about nitrates or arsenic or any other potential contaminant.
Municipalities spend thousands of dollars to meet the testing requirements for all of the potential contaminants regulated by DNR and EPA.
It may seem like we ask a lot of questions when you want to have your water tested, but these are the reasons we ask. We want you to understand exactly what it is that you are paying for. We want you to have a high level of confidence in the testing we provide in hopes that we can guide you through the complexity of water testing thoroughly.
