Free testing, with limits
Texas A&M holds county well screenings around Texas, some free and some for a small fee. Check which tests it includes before you count on it for uranium.
Texas's private well pageUranium in Texas well water, by county
Uranium is worth checking in 2 of the 18 Texas counties with 10 or more tested wells, and rare in the rest. A county's share tells you how likely a problem is nearby. Only a test of your own well tells you what's in it.
How Texas compares with the rest of the country
Across Texas, under 1 in 50 tested wells had uranium over the EPA limit of 30 µg/L (6 of 981). Across all tested wells in the US it's about 1 in 22. That's less often than in the country as a whole. Counties still differ, so check yours below.
Why it matters: Drinking it for years can harm your kidneys and raises the risk of cancer.
Uranium comes out of the rock and sediment the wells draw from.
Uranium in tested wells, county by county
Share of each county's tested wells with at least one result over the EPA limit of 30 µg/L. Counties need 10 or more tested wells to be listed. Widespread means 15% or more, worth checking 5 to 15%, rare under 5%.
| County | Wells tested | Wells over the limit | Level |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lamb County | 10 | Worth checking | |
| Gaines County | 19 | Worth checking | |
| Harris County | 162 | Rare | |
| Bexar County | 103 | Rare | |
| El Paso County | 38 | Rare | |
| Tarrant County | 32 | Rare | |
| Pecos County | 31 | Rare | |
| Hays County | 27 | Rare | |
| Medina County | 25 | Rare | |
| Comal County | 24 | Rare | |
| Travis County | 22 | Rare | |
| Yoakum County | 22 | Rare | |
| Montgomery County | 20 | Rare | |
| Terry County | 20 | Rare | |
| Uvalde County | 20 | Rare | |
| Williamson County | 19 | Rare | |
| Wilson County | 15 | Rare | |
| Atascosa County | 10 | Rare |
124 more Texas counties have 1 to 9 tested wells for uranium, too few to rate.
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Where to get your well tested for uranium in Texas
A lab Texas certifies
Ask for uranium by name. Results from a certified lab count for a home sale or a loan.
Labs certified by TexasA mail-in kit
Fill the bottles at your kitchen tap and mail them back. We mark the kits that include uranium.
Compare kitsKeep reading about wells in Texas
- Well water testing in Texas: how to get tested and what turns up statewide
- Uranium in well water: where it comes from, what it does and how to remove it
- Nitrate in Texas wells, by county
- Arsenic in Texas wells, by county
- Manganese in Texas wells, by county
- Lead in Texas wells, by county
Questions people ask about uranium in Texas
Is there uranium in Texas well water?
Uranium is worth checking in 2 of the 18 Texas counties with 10 or more tested wells, and rare in the rest. Across Texas, under 1 in 50 tested wells had uranium over the EPA limit of 30 µg/L (6 of 981). Across all tested wells in the US it's about 1 in 22. That's less often than in the country as a whole. Counties still differ, so check yours below.
Where can I get my well tested for uranium in Texas?
Texas A&M holds county well screenings around Texas, some free and some for a small fee. If that doesn't cover you, use a lab certified by Texas for drinking water, or a mail-in kit that includes uranium from a certified lab.
See Texas's list of certified labs, or compare mail-in kits.
Where these numbers come from
- Lab tests: Water Quality Portal (USGS and EPA), well samples since 2000. A well counts as over if any of its tests was over the EPA limit of 30 µg/L. Wells tested for studies and monitoring, not a random sample of homes.
- Likely overstated: our own check of who tested the wells, when and where. How we check.
- State programs and links: Texas Water Development Board and Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ).