For all your country folk that are not hooked up to city water but have a private well or share with neighbors, this information is for you.

Testing your well water is extremely important to maintain clean water for healthy living. As the well owner, you are responsible for testing your well to ensure that your well water is safe to drink. Just like we preach to our city folk about having regular water testing, we recommend having your well water tested at least once a year. By doing so, it will give you peace of mind and address any water treatment issues you may have that need correcting to supply your household with clean water.

What are we testing for? Typically, when a McGowan water specialist tests your well water we are analyzing the following substances: arsenic, bacteria, hardness, iron, lead, manganese, nitrate, nitrite, sodium, pesticides and pH.

Keep in mind that when we say once a year, there could be some situations that you should consider testing your well water more frequently:

• Regular use of hazardous chemicals nearby your home
• Heavily developed areas or industrial land uses nearby your home
• Recent well construction or repairs
• Earlier testing results that revealed elevated levels of contaminants
• A noticeable change in water quality, especially after a heavy rain or if water quality had always been good before
• An unexplained cloudy appearance or funny taste

A common misconception by homeowners is that chlorine alone will clean a well—the more chlorine, the better. However, chlorine can serve as an effective disinfectant only if the well is sufficiently clean and free of debris.

If we test your well water and find that contaminates, bacteria or viruses are present, we will evaluate your water treatment needs to decide what it will take to get your equipped with clean water. We have a variety of treatment options including iron curtain filtration systems, specific to wells and rural water treatment and UV lights.

We try to make water testing as convenient and hassle-free as possible. We can gather a water sample on-site for testing or can provide a container for you to gather a water sample and drop off at our office for testing. Give us a call at 507-388-3361 to test your well water. Consider it an early gift for the holidays to you, your family and guests.