Virginia Tech’s Virginia Household Water Quality Program offers affordable water testing and education through local Virginia Cooperative Extension offices, aimed at the roughly 1.7 million Virginians who rely on wells, springs or cisterns. Clinics are held in many counties each year. Wellborne explains how they work and why they are worth watching for.
How a clinic runs
The program describes four steps:
- Kickoff meeting. Participants pick up a sample kit and learn how and when to collect their sample.
- Sampling. Participants collect a sample from their household tap following the instructions and drop it off locally on the collection day.
- Analysis. Samples go to Virginia Tech for analysis. The panel has included total coliform and E. coli bacteria, nitrate, lead, copper, arsenic, fluoride, sodium, hardness, iron, manganese, total dissolved solids, pH and sulfate.
- Results. Confidential results come back through the Extension office, with an interpretation meeting explaining what they mean.
Clinic dates vary by county and year. Check with your local Extension office, or the program’s website, for the next one near you; some recent clinics have offered online options.
What Suffolk’s clinic found
An earlier clinic in Suffolk tested samples from 204 households, nearly all on wells. Its published report found:
- Fluoride at or above 2 mg/L in 60% of samples, and above the federal 4 mg/L limit in 19%.
- Sodium above 20 mg/L in 78% of samples.
- Total coliform bacteria in 21% of samples, and E. coli in 2%.
- A rotten-egg odor reported by about one household in five.
Those results are from an older, voluntary sample, so they show the pattern for the area rather than the condition of any one well. They are a strong argument for testing deep Suffolk wells for fluoride and sodium as well as bacteria.
Getting a good sample
A clinic result is only as good as the sample. Follow the kit’s instructions exactly: sample from the tap they specify, usually a cold-water kitchen tap, with the aerator removed if asked, after running the water for the time given. Do not sample through a filter or softener unless you are deliberately testing the treated water. Keep the bacteria bottle sealed until the moment of sampling and drop it off within the window, because bacteria results depend on the sample reaching the lab quickly.
The questionnaire that comes with the kit matters too. Clinic reports use it to describe local wells, such as their depth, age and nearby land uses, which is how the Suffolk report could say that 59% of participants had wells deeper than 300 feet.
Clinics and certified labs
A clinic is a low-cost way to get a broad picture. Certified private laboratories test year-round and are the route for a sale, a lender requirement, or testing after pump work when you need a result quickly. Either way, keep the results with your well records.
After the results
If a result is above a health limit, the next step is to find the source where possible and choose treatment from the result. Bacteria usually point to the wellhead. Fluoride and sodium usually call for treatment at a drinking tap. The treatment page explains the options, or call (757) 919-1972.