Before this all of our analysis was very manual, we were counting bacteria on a Petri dish or manually counting colonies or changing colors on a tray.
— Jennifer McMulling, Barnstable County Water Quality Laboratory
MASS-DEP Gives First-in-state Certification Nod to Barnstable County
Barnstable County's water testing lab has become the first in the state to certify on a new type of drinking water testing.
Click on image above to watch short news report and see the lab in action.
02 January 2026 – BARNSTABLE, MA – The state gave a nod to the Barnstable County Water Quality Lab, granting its latest piece of water testing technology the first certification of its type in the Commonwealth. The new system provides faster more automated testing for harmful bacteria in drinking water.
What is the Barnstable County Water Quality Lab?
It began as a milk-testing lab in the 1920s and a century later has become a full-fledged testing laboratory perched at the top of the hill at Barnstable County Complex in Barnstable Village. With Cape Cod’s copious water, the lab has grown into a key part of monitoring heath of the region’s beaches, ponds, and wells.
What does the lab do?
The Water Quality lab tests private wells and water company systems, as well as public, private, and association beaches, pools, ponds, and other bodies of waters. Its systems monitor the health of drinking water, as well as swimming areas, testing for everything from e.coli and general coliform bacteria, copper, lead, and salt to emerging threats ranging from PFAS contamination and cyanobacteria.
What is the new instrument?
In late 2025 the lab deployed a new device called Techra, a water testing system that looks a bit like a desktop photocopying machine but is instead an automated incubator that can hold up to 16 small water sample bottles, monitoring them for presence of e. coli and general coliform bacteria, then automatically reporting out in as little as 4 hours. A full negative result takes 18 hours.
The system cost $26,000, which came from the County’s post-COVID ARPA grant funding.
What is the new certification?
The lab’s new device and its new state certification officially brings the glass jar and Petri dish traditional microbiology testing methods into an automated, sensor-driven 21st century process.
Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection certifies labs to test drinking water and in late 2025 gave the nod to the new process in Barnstable County, making it the first in the state to receive such a certification.
Why test water?
“Drinking water of course is fundamental to everyone out here,” said Dan White Lab Director of the water laboratory.
On Cape Cod healthy water drives the economy. The many private wells coupled with hundreds of bodies of water and a shared aquifer mean constant monitoring comes with the territory. E. coli and coliform bacteria in either drinking water supplies or swimming water can cause gastro-intestinal issues, especially in children and people with immuno-compromised systems.
State health officials require beaches with positive bacterial results to close, causing an economic burp in a region that relies on a short water-based summer season for substantial income.
In short, local, fast, and accurate water testing translates into healthy people and a healthy economy.
How do labs test water?
Water testing in 1940, 1970, and 1990 look remarkably the same. A carefully managed glass, filter, and heat system created a happy bacterial grown environment. Samples grew in Petri dishes, which technicians look at under a microscope, counting bacteria colonies manually. This system remains in use today – but will now co-exist with something a more futuristic.
“This is the first time the state certifying authority has seen this instrument used in a lab and setting the state for other laboratories in the state to become certified,” said Jennifer McMullin, environmental project assistant with the Barnstable County water lab.
“Before this all of our analysis was very manual, we were counting bacteria on a Petri dish or manually counting colonies or changing colors on a tray,” said added. “This is the first time we are seeing a fully automated piece of technology in the microbiology lab.”
How does this benefit Cape Cod?
It’s new, its very very new technology” said White, the Lab Director.
He explained that the new system allows the lab to process samples over the weekend or at times it would otherwise be closed. Staff can begins the process and then the test equipment email results automatically as it has them. That means the lab can begin analysis of a sample that arrives on Friday afternoon and receive the results – and share them – remotely over the weekend.
“It’s a great resource for an area that’s so tied to water quality as the Cape,” he said.
“All of our lives depend on water and how it interacts with our lives out here.”
For more information:
Barnstable County Water Testing Laboratory website
