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Well water testing in Oakland County, Michigan
Who to contact in Oakland County, what Michigan recommends you test and how often, arsenic in southeast Michigan, and where to get a sample analyzed, with a source for every fact.
How many people here use a private well
USGS estimates that about 218,000 people in Oakland County supplied their own household water in 2015, about 18% of the county's population. By number of people, that was the largest self-supplied population of any Michigan county in the data.1
Local health department
EGLE lists the Oakland County Health Department as one of the Michigan health departments with onsite testing capabilities for private well water:2
| Contact | Details |
|---|---|
| health@oakgov.com | |
| Phone | 248-858-1280 |
If you're outside the counties with onsite testing, EGLE says you can request a test through the EGLE Laboratory.2
What Michigan requires and recommends
- New or repaired wells must be tested when installed or repaired. At a minimum, most new wells must test negative for bacteria, with nitrate at 10 ppm or less and arsenic at 10 ppb or less (this summary is from Livingston County's health department).4
- After that, the MDHHS routine schedule is coliform bacteria, nitrate and nitrite every year, and arsenic, lead and copper every 3 to 5 years.4
- EGLE says private well owners own their water system and are responsible for protecting their drinking water quality, and lists the standard concerns as coliform bacteria, nitrate, nitrite, fluoride, chloride, sulfate, sodium, hardness, and metals including arsenic, copper, lead, iron, manganese and uranium.2
Arsenic in Oakland County and southeast Michigan
- A USGS study reported that arsenic above 10 µg/L is present in hundreds of private wells across ten counties in eastern and southeastern Michigan, mostly in wells completed in the Marshall Sandstone or in glacial or Pennsylvanian bedrock aquifers.5
- A USGS national model estimates that about 7,500 domestic-well users in Oakland County (95% confidence range about 6,000–9,500, based on 2010 population) have well water with predicted arsenic above 10 µg/L.6 That's a model estimate and can't predict any single well.
- EGLE recommends not using well water for drinking or cooking if arsenic exceeds 0.010 mg/L (10 ppb).3
Where to get tested and treatment options
PFAS
For PFAS questions, the MDHHS Environmental Health Hotline is 800-648-6942. It can tell you whether your home is in an area under investigation, where testing may be free.4
Related guides
- How to read your well water test results
- How often to test a private well
- Shock chlorinating a well
- Livingston County, MI · All Michigan county pages
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Dieter, C.A., and others, 2018, Estimated Use of Water in the United States County-Level Data for 2015 (ver. 2.0), U.S. Geological Survey data release (domestic self-supplied population). https://doi.org/10.5066/F7TB15V5 ↩
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Michigan EGLE, "Private Residential Water Well Testing." https://www.michigan.gov/egle/about/organization/drinking-water-and-environmental-health/water-well-construction/private-well-testing ↩↩↩↩
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Michigan EGLE, "Arsenic in well water." https://www.michigan.gov/egle/about/organization/drinking-water-and-environmental-health/water-well-construction/guidance-materials/arsenic-in-well-water ↩↩↩
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Livingston County, MI, Environmental Health, "Water Quality Testing for Wells" (state requirements and the MDHHS schedule). https://milivcounty.gov/environmental-health/wells/water-quality/ ↩↩↩
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Kolker, A., and others, 2003, "Arsenic in southeastern Michigan," in Arsenic in Ground Water, p. 281–294. https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/70199413 ↩
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Ayotte, J.D., Medalie, L., and Qi, S.L., 2017, Estimated county level domestic well population with arsenic greater than 10 micrograms per liter based on probability estimates for the conterminous U.S., U.S. Geological Survey data release. https://doi.org/10.5066/F7CN724V ↩