Severe drought is back in Maine, and private wells are where it shows up first. If you drill, service pumps, or install treatment, the next two months are going to be busy. Worth remembering on every one of those jobs: the work itself restarts the water testing clock.
Where conditions actually stand
The U.S. Drought Monitor map for August 11, 2026 puts 82.1 percent of Maine in abnormally dry conditions or worse, 37.2 percent in moderate drought, and 5.4 percent in severe drought. Two weeks earlier, on the July 28 map, severe drought covered none of the state and moderate drought covered 12.3 percent. That is a fast move, and it is landing on groundwater that never fully recovered from last year. We covered what a falling water table does to well chemistry at the end of July. This is the operational half of the same problem.
What a dry summer sends to the trades
Dry-well calls. Deepening and hydrofracturing. Pumps reset lower in the borehole. Treatment installs on water that suddenly looks, smells, or tastes different than it did in June. Five different jobs, one thing in common: each opens the system, changes what the well draws from, or both.
Maine CDC already lists the triggers
You do not have to argue this from first principles with a customer. Maine CDC’s guidance for private well owners spells out when to test outside the routine cycle. Three items on that list describe this summer almost exactly:
- The well runs dry and comes back
- After installing a water treatment system, or replacing parts of one
- After any work is done on the well
Underneath those is the baseline the same page sets: annual testing for coliform bacteria, E. coli, nitrate and nitrite, plus a broader panel every three to five years for arsenic, uranium, radon, lead, manganese, iron, fluoride, sodium, chloride, copper, hardness, magnesium and pH. A drought year does not replace that schedule. It adds events on top of it.
The part that goes wrong before the sample reaches us
Chlorine is the big one. When a well is shocked after drilling or a pump replacement, and the sample gets pulled too soon, free chlorine is still sitting in the bottle when it reaches the bench. The coliform result that comes back is a report on the bleach, not on the aquifer. Maine CDC’s own shock chlorination guidance and the accompanying step-by-step procedure are clear that the chlorine odor has to be gone first, and then several more days should pass before resampling. We see bottles arrive well ahead of that, and the honest answer to the customer is that the clean result does not mean what they want it to mean.
Timing is the second one. We hold ourselves to getting bacteria samples on the bench within 30 hours of collection, because a coliform result loses its meaning after that. A sample pulled at four o’clock on a Friday and left in a truck over the weekend is spent before it ever gets to Gorham. That is not a shipping complaint, it is arithmetic.
Turbidity is the third. A freshly developed or hydrofractured well throws sediment for a while, and sediment carries metals that are not dissolved in the water the household will actually drink. Purge until it runs clear before you fill anything. Otherwise the arsenic or manganese number you get back belongs to the rock cuttings, not the well.
Sequencing that does not get redone
- Finish the mechanical work, then purge the whole system until it runs clear.
- If a shock is called for, run it properly and wait it out. Odor gone, then several more days.
- Collect bacteria and chemistry together, and get the bacteria bottle moving the same day. Monday through Wednesday beats Friday every time.
- If bacteria comes back positive after two properly executed shocks, stop shocking.
Maine CDC is blunt about that last point. A third positive is a likely sign of a structural problem in the well or a contaminated source aquifer, and no amount of shock chlorination will permanently solve it. The usual suspects are a damaged casing or casing seal, an improperly installed pitless adapter, a casing terminating too close to grade, or a shallow bedrock fracture. Selling a customer a fourth shock is selling them the same disappointment twice.
When your customer does not need a test
Swapping a pressure switch or a pressure tank downstream of a closed system is not the same as opening the well. If nothing upstream was opened to air and no chlorine went in, the routine annual bacteria and nitrate test is the right answer, not a full metals panel.
Bedrock geology also does not change in eight weeks. If a well tested clean for arsenic and uranium two years ago and nobody has touched it since, the three to five year cycle still governs. Arsenic at the EPA maximum contaminant level of 0.010 mg/L is a geology question first and a water table question second. Telling a customer they do not need something today is the cheapest trust you will ever buy.
Working with an independent lab
Chanalytical is an independent third-party lab in Gorham. We do not sell treatment equipment, or filtration. When a result comes back over a limit, we have nothing to gain from the number, which means the recommendation that follows the report stays yours to make.
Panels, kits and partner pricing are laid out on our pages for treatment providers and home inspectors. Bacteria kits and what they cover are on the bacteria testing page. When the 30-hour clock is tight, skip the mail and use one of our drop-off locations. We serve Maine and New Hampshire, and most of our kits are built for that footprint, because a bacteria sample cannot travel much further and still be worth reading. If you have a job with an odd sequence and want a straight answer on timing, the lab line is (207) 747-1815.
Homeowners who want a starting point can use the free 60-second Well Check to see which tests fit, and every kit we run is available to order online with nine drop-off locations across Maine.