If you're on a private well in Marlboro, Holmdel, Colts Neck, Howell, or anywhere else in Monmouth County — no one tests your water but you. Here's the full playbook, straight up.
About 1.1 million New Jersey residents drink from private wells — and the EPA does not regulate a single one of them. No annual report, no required tests, no utility watching your back. In Monmouth County that hits rural Marlboro, Holmdel, Colts Neck, and Howell hardest. Minimum you need to test for: bacteria, nitrates, arsenic, PFAS, VOCs, and lead. NJ's Private Well Testing Act only forces testing at sale or lease — everything else is on you. Expect $250–$900 at an NJDEP-certified lab. Treatment depends entirely on what shows up in the results.
Municipal water in Monmouth County — NJ American Water's Coastal North System, Aqua NJ, Keyport Water Department — is tested hundreds of times a year and published every spring in a Consumer Confidence Report. Private wells get none of that. The Safe Drinking Water Act explicitly exempts any well serving fewer than 25 people or 15 service connections, which means virtually every residential well in New Jersey is unregulated by the EPA.
That's a problem in a state like ours. According to USGS and NJ Geological Survey data, roughly 1.1 million NJ residents get their drinking water from private wells — the highest concentrations in rural and semi-rural western Monmouth: Marlboro, Holmdel, Colts Neck, Howell, Upper Freehold, Millstone, and Manalapan. These are the same zones where century-old agricultural nitrate runoff, naturally elevated arsenic in the Piedmont bedrock, and PFAS plumes from firefighting foam can all show up in the same sample.
No CCR arrives in your mailbox. No utility calls when something is wrong. If you don't test, you don't know.
Sources: USGS — Domestic (Private) Supply Wells; NJ Geological & Water Survey; EPA — Private Drinking Water Wells.
The New Jersey Private Well Testing Act (PWTA), signed in 2002 and expanded in 2021 to include PFAS, is the most aggressive private-well law in the country. Here's what it actually forces:
What PWTA does not cover: any well outside a sale or rental trigger. If you've owned your home for 20 years and never sold it, the law has never required you to test. That's the gap where most contaminated wells sit — and it's why Rutgers Cooperative Extension, NJDEP, and every public-health study we've seen recommend testing on a voluntary schedule whether the law forces you or not.
Sources: NJDEP — Private Well Testing Act; Rutgers Cooperative Extension — Water Testing; NJAC 7:9E PWTA Regulations.
There are hundreds of things a lab can measure. For a Monmouth County well, these are the nine that actually matter, ranked by how likely they are to show up and how bad they are when they do:
The number one reason wells fail. Positive coliform means surface water is reaching your well — cracked casing, bad seal, or septic intrusion. Test annually. A positive E. coli result is a boil-water event: do not drink the water.
Agricultural runoff is the big source in western Monmouth. EPA MCL is 10 mg/L. Levels above 5 mg/L mean fertilizer or septic influence and are dangerous for pregnant women and infants under six months (blue-baby syndrome / methemoglobinemia).
New Jersey's bedrock, especially in the Piedmont and parts of coastal plain, contains naturally elevated arsenic. NJ's MCL of 5 µg/L is stricter than the federal 10 µg/L. Long-term exposure is linked to bladder, lung, and skin cancer.
About 11% of NJ private wells tested under the expanded PWTA have exceeded the state's PFAS limit. If you're anywhere near a former military site, airport, or fire-training facility, PFAS is a realistic concern. See our full PFAS guide for New Jersey.
Volatile organic compounds from dry cleaners, gas stations, industrial sites, and Superfund zones. Monmouth County has dozens of legacy contamination sites listed in the NJDEP Known Contaminated Sites database. If any is within a half-mile of your well, VOC screening is non-optional.
Usually a plumbing issue, not an aquifer issue — corrosive low-pH water leaches lead from solder joints and brass fittings in older homes. Test first-draw (morning, before any water use) to catch this.
Aesthetic and equipment-damage issues. Hard water destroys water heaters and appliances. Iron above 0.3 mg/L stains fixtures orange. Manganese above 0.05 mg/L stains things black and has emerging neurological concerns at higher levels.
Radioactive gas dissolved in groundwater. Showering releases it into indoor air, where it becomes a lung-cancer risk. Geology-dependent — test at least once to know your baseline.
Parts of NJ bedrock contain natural uranium. The PWTA includes gross alpha screening for a reason. It's rare, but when it hits, it hits hard.
Sources: NJDEP — PWTA Homeowner Guide; EPA National Primary Drinking Water Regulations; CDC — Private Well Testing.
You cannot use a gas-station test strip for any of this. New Jersey requires an NJDEP-certified drinking-water laboratory for any result to be legally valid (and accurate enough to act on). Popular labs serving Monmouth County:
The full, current list is maintained on the NJDEP Office of Quality Assurance Certified Laboratory list. Verify certification is active before you pay.
| Test Package | What's Included | Typical Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Basic PWTA Panel | Bacteria, nitrate, pH, iron, manganese, lead, mercury, arsenic, gross alpha, VOCs | $250–$400 |
| Comprehensive Panel | PWTA + PFAS + radon + uranium + extended metals | $500–$900 |
| PFAS Only | PFOA, PFOS, PFNA, PFHxS, GenX (EPA 537.1 / 533) | $250–$400 |
| Bacteria Only (annual) | Total coliform + E. coli | $25–$60 |
| FIXALL On-Site Screen | Chlorine, hardness, TDS, pH, sediment (not a substitute for lab testing) | FREE |
Think of the free on-site screen as a triage step. It tells us immediately whether your water is hard, how much dissolved solids are in it, and whether something obvious is wrong. If it flags an issue, we send you to a certified lab with a specific panel in mind — no wasted money on tests you don't need.
A bad sample is worse than no sample — it gives you a false negative and you stop worrying. Here's how the labs actually want it done:
The lab will ship you sterile pre-preserved bottles for each analyte. Do not rinse them, do not mix them, do not use a different container "because you lost the lid." Bacteria bottles often contain sodium thiosulfate; metals bottles are acid-preserved; VOC vials must be filled completely with zero headspace.
Lead and copper — first draw in the morning before anyone runs water. That captures the water that's been sitting in your pipes overnight, which is the worst-case exposure. Bacteria and general chemistry — run cold water for 3 to 5 minutes first to flush the pipes and sample the actual groundwater.
Remove any aerator or hose. For bacteria samples, flame the tap with a lighter or wipe with bleach solution. Outdoor spigots with hose bibs are a bad idea for bacteria sampling — use an indoor tap without a filter on it.
Fill out the chain-of-custody form completely. Keep samples cold (ice pack or cooler). Ship same day or next day via overnight service. Bacteria samples are only valid for 30 hours from collection to lab.
FIXALL can perform the collection for you as a certified sampler, which is required for any PWTA-triggered test during a real-estate transaction. For voluntary testing you can self-collect as long as you follow the lab's instructions exactly.
Source: NJDEP — Drinking Water Sampling Guidance; lab-specific instructions included with each sample kit.
Two numbers to watch: the EPA Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL), which is the legal enforceable limit, and the EWG Health Guideline, which is what the peer-reviewed literature says is actually safe. They are often orders of magnitude apart — and "below the MCL" is not the same as "safe."
Once you know what's in your water, treatment is a matching exercise. There is no single filter that solves everything. Here's the stack:
| Contaminant | Treatment | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Coliform / E. coli | Shock chlorination + UV sterilizer | UV disinfects continuously; shock kills what's already there |
| Nitrates | Reverse osmosis or anion exchange | Ion exchange only; carbon does nothing for nitrate |
| Arsenic | Granular ferric hydroxide (GFH), activated alumina, or RO | Specialty media — standard carbon won't remove it |
| PFAS | GAC whole-home + kitchen RO | Long-chain PFAS bind to carbon; RO catches the rest |
| VOCs (TCE, PCE, benzene) | High-capacity GAC | Carbon is the gold standard for organic solvents |
| Lead / Copper | Point-of-use RO or NSF 53 filter + replace old plumbing | Usually a pipe issue, not a source issue |
| Iron / Manganese | Oxidation + catalytic filter (Halo 5 handles Fe up to ~1 ppm) | Iron must be oxidized out of solution first |
| Hardness | Halo 5 whole-home conditioning | Salt-free conditioning protects fixtures without a brine tank |
| Radon (in water) | Aeration system or large-volume GAC | Aeration is more effective for high levels |
| Uranium | RO or anion exchange | Same principle as nitrate removal |
For most Monmouth County wells, the workhorse combination is a UV sterilizer (bacteria insurance even if your current test is clean), a Halo 5 for hardness / iron / chlorine byproducts, and a kitchen RO for PFAS, nitrates, lead, and drinking-water polish. If your test shows arsenic or uranium, the RO handles those too.
FIXALL Plumbing Heating & Air Condition designs every well-water treatment stack around the actual lab report — not a pre-packaged sales kit. Licensed NJ Master Plumber #36BI01212500. 57 NJ-35, Keyport, NJ 07735.
FIXALL Plumbing Heating & Air Condition is based in Keyport, serving all of Monmouth County. We'll come out, run an on-site screen, walk you through your lab results if you have them, and build a treatment plan that matches your actual water — not a brochure.
FIXALL Plumbing Heating & Air Condition is based in Keyport, serving all of Monmouth County. Book a free on-site screen — we'll tell you straight what you're dealing with.