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State Urges Residents to Test Their Wells

Barbara Wells
/
Creative Commons

Nearly 25 percent of the state’s population gets its drinking water from a private well. Now the state is calling on residents who own those wells to test them regularly. 

The state says most people only test the water in their private wells for bacteria and contaminants when they’re first built. The state has released a three-part video series to encourage people to test their well water more often.

"Hi, my name is Jessica, and I live in southwestern Connecticut," the first video says. "Until recently, I had no clue that my private drinking well water had arsenic and uranium in it.

"When I got the results back and found out we had double the legal limits of arsenic, I was devastated," she said.

The first video emphasizes why testing is important. After her results came back, Jessica installed a filtration system – something she wouldn’t have done had she not taken a closer look at her water.

"If you don’t have your water tested, you don’t know what's in it," she said.  "Please, have your water tested today."

As part of National Groundwater Awareness week, officials also say that testing will help them better map the areas of the state that have unhealthy quantities of naturally-occurring contaminants.

Jeff Cohen started in newspapers in 2001 and joined Connecticut Public in 2010, where he worked as a reporter and fill-in host. In 2017, he was named news director. Then, in 2022, he became a senior enterprise reporter.

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