Everyone says 'test the water'. Well, you'd best know what you should be testing FOR. If you just take a jar of water into the local water-testing place and ask for a test with no specifics, they'll charge you about $8 and check it for bacteria. Period.

Call the place that tests the water and ask for advice. What kind of contaminants are generally found in the area? What would they recommend testing for? Certain businesses can contaminate water for many miles around. If you live below (aquifer-wise) a mining area, you should test for the stuff they use around mines. If you live in a ranching area, you would probably want to test for bacteria and nitrate levels. If you live in a farming area, check levels of the chemicals they use: chemical fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides.

You can't judge what the water might contain just by getting a web overview of the businesses currently within a hundred miles or so. Montana and Colorado (to name a couple) still have contaminants from the mining of 150 years ago. The stuff doesn't just evaporate and disappear. It's still there.

I read about a place in MA that was a livery stable for about 65 years. Many, many years (like 50-60) later, it was still contaminating the groundwater for quite some distance.

The labs test a lot of water from many local areas, so they could probably give you a lot of tips.

Sue