Well water in Pope County, Illinois
No public well test results have been compiled for Pope County yet. The USGS national arsenic model estimates that <1% of the 75 people on private wells there draw water with arsenic above 10 ug/L, the EPA limit, based on geology, well depth and land use rather than local tests.
The strongest signal is coliform bacteria: Recommended for every private well, every year, too few samples to carry the headline but first on the test list below.
Data refreshed September 15, 2026.
Compiled by Nick at Well Water Nerd from public records. How these pages are built
Data confidence: estimate. No state program or federal monitoring data for Pope County has been compiled here yet, so the arsenic figure is the USGS national model, not a measurement. Treat a high estimate as a reason to test, not as your well's number. Measured results are added as states publish them.
An estimated 75 people in Pope County get their drinking water from a private well, per USGS 2015 county water use. That is about 2% of residents.
Closer than the county
See the sampled wells near your address
The same records, drawn around one point: which wells within a few miles were sampled and what they found, how deep the wells next to you were drilled, and any leaking tank or cleanup site within a mile.
Check my addressWhat this means
Among contaminants with a federal limit, no tested sample in Pope County came back above it. That is reassuring, but sampling is uneven: wells that were never tested are not in this data.
What to test for in Pope County
- 1Coliform bacteriaRecommended for every private well, every year.
- 2NitrateRecommended for every private well, especially near farms or septic systems.
Test your Pope County well for coliform bacteria and nitrate
Certified lab analysis of your own tap water, bottles and prepaid return shipping included. The Essential well panel covers arsenic, uranium, nitrate, lead, copper, manganese, iron, sodium and bacteria; radon and PFAS are add-ons.
Order the Tap Score well water test kit, from $209Already tested? Upload the report
Just want bacteria checked first? Tap Score coliform and E. coli test, $99. Coliform and E. coli are the tests every well needs every year.
Want a quick look before paying for a lab? Home well water test strips on Amazon check hardness, iron, pH and nitrate in minutes. They are a screen, not a result: arsenic, bacteria, uranium and PFAS need a certified lab.
Affiliate links: the merchant pays us a commission and the price is the same for you. It does not change what the data above says. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
Where to get a well tested in Illinois: certified labs, state programs and prices.
Already have results back? Get your lab report read against the Pope County numbers, $29. Every line explained, ranked by what matters, with the fix for each.
The rock under Pope County
Not a principal aquifer
The USGS map places this area outside any principal aquifer, which usually means wells here draw from fractured bedrock or thin local deposits rather than a large regional aquifer. Bedrock wells of that kind are where arsenic, radon and uranium turn up, and yields vary from well to well.
Classification from the USGS Principal Aquifers of the United States (national map, 2003 edition, GIS release 2015), read at the county centroid. A single well can sit in a different unit, especially near a boundary.
Official help in Illinois
Two places to start that are not selling anything: the state program that answers private well questions, and its list of labs certified to run drinking water tests. A certified lab is the difference between a result you can act on and a number.
- Private Water & Closed Loop Wells, IDPH
- Accredited Labs, Illinois EPA
Free, no obligation
Get on the list for a free in-home water test in Pope County
No water treatment company serves Pope County through Well Water Nerd yet. We are signing licensed companies on county by county: they test at your tap for free, walk you through the numbers, and quote treatment only if something needs fixing. Leave your details and you are first in line. Nothing is shared until a company joins for Pope County, and you get an email naming it first.
Common questions
How often should I test a private well in Pope County?
Test for bacteria and nitrate every year. Test once for arsenic, uranium, radon, fluoride, manganese and PFAS, then again every three to five years or after any change in taste, color, or plumbing.
Counties near Pope County
Closest first. Groundwater does not stop at a line on a map, so the next county over is a fair second opinion.
Want the numbers themselves? Download the Illinois dataset as CSV, every county and town, with the sources named.
Sources
- USGS national arsenic model (Ayotte 2017): estimated share of 75 people on private wells in Pope County above 10 ug/L of arsenic, from geology, well depth and land use. County estimates of domestic well users with arsenic above 10 ug/L from the USGS national logistic regression model (Ayotte, Medalie and Qi, 2017), with private well population from the USGS 2015 county water-use compilation (Dieter and others, 2018). Retrieved September 15, 2026.
Non-detects count as samples and are treated as zero when computing medians. Exactly at the limit counts as not above it. A sample belongs to the town containing the well's reported coordinates.