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Water

Roughly 43 million Americans drink from a private well, and no federal agency is required to test any of them.

Everyone else gets water from a utility that measures what leaves the treatment plant, not what pours out of a kitchen tap. Those are 2 different questions. One of them is nobody's job.

Water is the exposure you take in every day without thinking about it. It carries whatever it picks up from the ground it flows through, the pipes it travels, and the fixtures it passes on the last few feet into your home.

Water questions we get asked

How do I find out who supplies my water?

Your water bill names the supplier. No bill and no meter usually means a private well, which no agency supplies or tests for you.

What is a Consumer Confidence Report?

An annual summary every community water system sends its customers by July 1. It lists detected contaminants, the enforceable limits, and where the water comes from. It is free, and most utilities post it online.

Does a clean utility report mean my tap is safe?

Not always. The report describes water in the system, not water at your tap. Lead often enters after the utility's responsibility ends, so one house can have a problem its neighbors do not.

Why does my report show a range instead of one number?

The utility samples through the year and results vary. An average can look fine while individual samples ran high. The range is where a spike shows up.

Who tests a private well?

The owner, or nobody. The EPA and CDC both recommend an annual panel for coliform bacteria, nitrate, pH and total dissolved solids, and neither can require it.

What should I test my well for?

Start with those 4, then add what your surroundings suggest. Nearby farmland points to nitrate and pesticides. An old gas station or landfill points to volatile organic compounds and metals.

Is hard water bad for my health?

No. The USGS treats hardness as a nuisance rather than a health concern. It affects taste and buildup on fixtures, not your safety.

Do I need a water filter?

Only once you know what you are filtering. Filters are certified for specific contaminants, so a unit rated for taste and chlorine does nothing about lead or nitrate. Test first, then decide.

The source decides what is in the water before anyone treats it

Most tap water starts in rivers, lakes and reservoirs, or in groundwater pulled from underground aquifers. That choice shapes what reaches you before anyone treats a drop. Roughly half of Americans drink surface water and roughly half drink groundwater, and the split runs by region rather than by anything a household chose.

Surface water reflects the land around it. Farm runoff, stormwater and whatever washes off nearby roads all end up in the same rivers that supply millions of homes. Groundwater runs steadier, though it carries naturally occurring metals and whatever seeps down from the surface above it.

Neither source is safer in general. A community drawing from a river and a community drawing from an aquifer simply face different lists of things worth looking for, and that list, rather than any broad judgement about surface versus underground, is what a sensible test should follow.

Lead enters after the utility's job ends

Clean water leaving a treatment plant does not stay that way automatically. The journey through miles of public mains and then your own plumbing can add things the utility never put in. Water sits in those pipes overnight, and the longer it sits in contact with metal, the more it picks up.

Lead is the clearest example. It rarely comes from the source. It enters from lead service lines, from solder installed before the 1986 federal ban, and from older brass fixtures. All 3 sit on the house side of the water meter. The CDC says there is no known safe level of lead exposure for children, which is why the pipe between the street and your sink matters as much as what flows through it.

This is also why 2 houses on one street can differ. The main under the road is shared. Your service line, your solder and your fixtures are not, which means the answer for your neighbor tells you very little about the answer for you.

Nitrate and PFAS give no warning at all

Nitrate and PFAS can't be tasted, smelled or seen. The first comes off agricultural runoff, and the EPA sets a limit of 10 milligrams per liter to protect infants from a condition that reduces oxygen in the blood. Nothing warns you at the tap. The number is the only signal there is.

PFAS is the second. This class of industrial chemicals, used for decades in nonstick and waterproof products, breaks down so slowly it earned the name forever chemicals. That word is doing real work: these compounds were built not to break down, which is why they are still in the water decades after the products that carried them.

Both are regulated on the utility's side of the meter, and neither announces itself at the tap. A laboratory panel is the only way to turn either one from a worry into a number.

Your Consumer Confidence Report is already published

Start with the report you already have. Community water systems publish an annual Consumer Confidence Report online and by mail. Reading the range of results tells you more than the average alone.

Then find out what your service line is made of. Utilities now publish service line inventories by address, so you can learn whether lead lies in the path to your home. If a test makes sense, use a state certified laboratory. Buy a filter last, once you know what you are treating.

Run the water for 30 seconds to 2 minutes before drinking if a tap has stood unused overnight, which clears whatever sat in contact with the pipe while the house was asleep. It costs nothing. It is the one step that works before you know anything at all.

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