Safe Water

How do I know that the water we drink is safe? More that 75% of Minnesotans get their primary source of drinking water from a public supply. The Minnesota Department of Health administers and enforces the Safe Drinking Water Act to nearly 10,000 public water supplies in Minnesota. Countryside Public Health will provide water testing services for anyone not receiving water through a municipal supply. A water supply should be tested about once a year since contamination of a water supply can be intermittent and a sample drawn on one particular day may not be representative of water collected on a different day. How to I get my water tested? Water testing kits are available at your county Countryside Public Health office. The samples can be tested for coliform bacteria, nitrates, iron, hardness, sulfates and fluoride. The deposit for the water test kit is $5 which is applied to the tests you decide to request. We recommend that the water samples be taken and mailed to the Benson office on Mondays, Tuesdays or Wednesdays, as the samples need to be in the lab for testing by Friday. You will be sent the results of your test by mail.