In honor of Drinking Water Week, we're sharing resources for owners of private residential wells. A well and its water are ultimately the responsibility of the well owner. If you have a private well, there are things that you should do to monitor your well system and your drinking water to help protect your family’s health and ensure quality tap water. Use the MDHHS MiWell Maintenance Checklist annually to check your well and the surrounding area (it takes less than 10 minutes!).

Check with your local health department to learn if there are any drinking water concerns in your area and what testing is recommended. MDHHS recommends yearly testing for Coliform Bacteria and E. coli, nitrate, and nitrite and testing every 3-5 years for arsenic, copper, and lead. If you live near a potential PFAS source or if you are unsure, consider testing your drinking water via a certified PFAS Laboratory. Call MDHHS at 844-934-1315 to see if your home is in an area that is under investigation for PFAS, in which case MDHHS may be able to test your water for free. 

Great Lakes Community Action Partnership's Water Well Assessment Program provides rural residents with no-cost well evaluations to help well owners determine possible sources of well contamination and other safety concerns, and a Household Water Well Assistance program that provides low-interest financing for well repair or construction.  

Choose a topic below from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Care for MiWell website to learn more or find private residential well educational materials that can be shipped to you free of charge at MDHHS Health Promotions. Go to the category “Drinking Water”.

Help promote drinking water and private residential well owner education in your community using the Care for MiWell Promotion Toolkit. This toolkit contains prepared, science-based social media messages, graphics, videos, and printable materials. All of these materials are designed to make sharing drinking water information easy.