United States
                       Environmental Protection
                       Agency
                              Office of Water
                              (4606)
EPA816-F-00-002
February 2000
vvEPA
Drinking Wafer:   Past, Present,

and  Future
This fact sheet contains highlights from a target report,  "25 Years of the Safe Drinking
Water Act:  History and Trends." Please refer to the full report for details and references.
You may order a copy of the report, as well as many other EPA drinking water documents, by
calling the Safe Drinking Water Hotline at (800) 426-4791, or you may view the report
online  at
http://www. epa. gov/safewater/sdwa25/sdwa. html
Civilizations have faced the challenge of obtaining safe drinking water for thousands of years.  As
a global society, we have learned a great deal about drinking water quality. However, we still have
much to learn about the health effects of drinking water contaminants, the testing and treatment
technologies required to detect and remove contariiinants, and ways to protect our water sources
from contamination.
During the 1800s, scientists began to gain an understanding of the sources and effects of drinking
water contaminants, especially those that were not visible to the naked eye. By the early  1900s,
engineers had developed techniques such as filtration and chlorination to prevent waterborne
microbes from causing disease.               .
               Highlights of the
           Safe Drinking Water Act
     Authorizes EPA to set enforceable health standards for
     contaminants in drinking water
     Requires public notification of water systems' violations
     and annual reports to customers on contaminants found
     in their drinking water
     Establishes a federal-state partnership for regulation
     enforcement
     Includes provisions specifically designed to protect
     underground sources of drinking water
     Requires disinfection of surface water and, as necessary,
     ground water used for drinking water
     Requires filtration of all surface water supplies, except
     those with pristine, protected sources
     Establishes a multi-billion dollar state revolving loan
     fund for water system upgrades
     Requires an assessment of the vulnerability of all
     drinking water sources to contamination
                                 Federal regulation of drinking water quality began in 1914,
                                 when the U.S. Public Health Service set standards for
                                 some disease-causing microbes. These standards were
                                 revised and expanded and eventually, with minor modifica-
                                 tions, all 5D states adopted the final 1962 Public Health
                                 Service standards either as regulations or as guidelines.
                                 By the latei 1960s, man-made chemicals began to have a
                                 noticeably; negative impact on the environment. Health
                                 concerns spurred the federal government to conduct several
                                 studies on the nation's water supplies which showed that
                                 many chemicals were present in treated drinking water.

                                 Increased awareness of environmental and health problems
                                 in the early 1970s eventually led to the passage of several
                                 federal laws, one of which was the Safe Drinking Water
                                 Act (SDWA) of 1974.  SDWA is administered by the U.S.
                                 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and its partners.
                                 SDWA aims to ensure that public water systems meet
                                 national standards that protect consumers from the harmful
                                 effects of contaminants in drinking water.
                                 SDWA requires EPA to regulate contaminants that present
                                 health rislqs and are known to, or are likely to, occur in
                                 public drinking water supplies. For each contaminant
requiring regulation, EPA sets a legal limit on the amount of the contaminant allowed in drinking
water (states may also set limits that are at least as: strict as EPA's). Since 1974, the number of
contaminants regulated under SDWA has quadrupled [see figure 1 next page].

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If a system violates EPA or state
regulations, it must notify the
public. States are required to
report violations to EPA's
database, the Safe Drinking
Water Information System
(SDWIS). This fact sheet
focuses mostly on community
water systems (systems that
provide drinking water to the
same people year-round),
because they are subject to all
SDWA regulations and serve
most Americans. The population
being served by community
water systems with no violations
of health-based standards has
increased steadily from 83
percent in 1994 to 89 percent in 1998 [see figure 2].
Compliance Trends
One way to gauge whether the quality of our nation's drinking
water lias improved under SDWA is to examine water systems'
compliance With federal regulations.  Evaluations of the
quality of compliance data in SDWIS have shown that a
significant number of violations have not been reported to
SDWIS. EPA and its partners are correcting these data
deficiencies. While deficiencies make it difficult to look at
historical compliance trends using SDWIS data, this is the
best source of drinking water data that exists on a nationwide
basis. Therefore, we present the following examples of
compliance trends, recognizing that the actual number of
systems in violation may be higher than shown.

Total Coliform: The Most Frequently
Violated Regulation
Figure 1. Number of Contaminants Regulated Under the
    Safe Drinking Water Act, by Contaminant Type
 Radionuclides
 Microbes
 Organic Chemicals
 Inorganic Chemicals
                   Figure 2. Percent of Population Served by
                       Community Water Systems With
                   No Violations of Health-Based Standards
                         1994
                                 1995
                                         1996
                                                 1997
                                                         1998
Coli forms are a group of bacteria that are common in both the environment and the digestive tracts    j
of humans and animals. Most of these bacteria are harmless; however, their presence in water at      1
any level indicates that disease-causing microbes may also be in the water.                         I
Since 1980, over 80 percent of all community water systems with any health-based violation had a
violation for total coliform. However, the number of systems with total coliform violations has
decreased fairly steadily since 1980, by about 200 systems per year.

System Size Affects Violation Trends
Community water systems of all sizes have generally followed the same decreasing trend in
violations since 1980, except for a period in the early 1990s when systems of all sizes struggled to
comply with several new regulations [see figure 3]. In recent years, it appears that the gap between
the percentage of small, medium, large and very large systems with violations has been closing.


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           Figure 3. Percent of Community Water Systems with
                      Any Violations, by System Size
70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

 0%
              Very Small (25-500)
              Small (501-3,300)
                                                              However, very small
                                                              systems are still almost 50
                                                              percent more likely to
                                                              violate regulations than
                                                              all other system sizes.
                                                              Very small systems
                                                              generally have the least
                                                              amount of resources
                                                              necessary to maintain and
                                                              upgrade equipment.


                                                              Waterborne
                                                              Disease
                                                              Outbreaks

                                                              Another way to look at the
                                                              quality of our nation's
                                                              drinking water is to
                                                              examine whether the
                                                              number of people
becoming ill from drinking contaminated water has decreased over the last 25 years. EPA and the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCj) believe that the vast majority of waterborne
disease outbreaks are never identified or reported.1 For this reason, EPA and CDC have been
working together to gather as much data as possible on waterborne disease outbreaks across the
country. Although the number of reported outbreaks in the U.S. has generally declined since the
early 1980s [see figure 4], some of the more recent outbreaks have been very serious, causing
numerous people to become ill and, in some cases;, even causing death.
In the last ten years, EPA has taken several actions to minimize outbreaks of waterborne disease by
requiring disinfection of most surface water supplies (lakes, rivers, and reservoks) and frequent
testing for microbes.  In 2000, EPA plans to propose a regulation that will require protection and
treatment of ground water sources.
Medium (3,301-10,000)
Large (10,001-100,000)
Very Large (over 100,000)
     Figure 4. Number of Waterborne Disease Outbreaks in Cqmmunity
          Water Systems and Their Causitive Agents (1974-1996)
                                                              The Cost of
                                                              Safe  Drinking
                                                              Water

                                                              The cost of tap water is
                                                              rising as suppliers
                                                              maintain and upgrade
                                                              aging treatment plants,
                                                              comply with more
                                                              regulations, and serve a
                                                              growing population. In
                                                              most cases, these increas-
                                                              ing costs have caused
                                                              water suppliers to raise
                                                              their water rates. How-
                                                              ever, despite rate in-
                                                              creases, water is generally

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still a bargain when compared with other utilities such as electricity and telephone service. It is
also important to recognize that, due to historic underpricing, the rates most water systems
charge their customers do not reflect the true cost of treating and delivering drinking water.

Treatment versus Prevention

Over the years, the number of water systems treating their water has increased [see figure 5].
Although treatment can be very effective at removing contaminants from drinking water, it can
sometimes be expensive.
Also, removing contami-
nants from drinking water
does not necessarily remove
them from the environment
(e.g., contaminants removed
from water are often-
disposed on land or released
into the air).  A more
environmentally sustainable
solution to drinking water
contamination is to prevent
pollutants from reaching
drinking water sources in
the first place. Several
programs that protect
source water exist under
SDWA and other environ-
mental laws.
      Figure 5. Percentage of Community Water Systems Providing
                   Any Treatment, by Population Served
100%
 60% -
 40% -
 20% -
  0%
0-100
101-500
501-1,000
1,001-3,300
3,301-10,000
             1976
                               1.982
                                                 1986
                                                                   1995
Challenges Ahead

While tremendous progress has been made over the last quarter century in improving the testing,
treatment, source protection, and provision of drinking water to the public, numerous challenges
remain:

*  More drinking water health information will need to be provided in a timely fashion to consum-
   ers who are most vulnerable to contaminants. This is especially important as cancer survivors
   and HIV/AIDS patients increase in number, and the elderly make up a growing percentage of the
   population.

•  The public and private sectors must work together to more effectively and efficiently conduct
   sound scientific research in order to continue learning about the health effects of known contami-
   nants, and to begin studying emerging contaminants.

•  Tap water must be conserved and its sources protected in order to lessen the negative impacts
   that trends in increasing population, urbanization and development may have on the future
   availability and quality of drinking water.

•  Consumers must recognize that high quality tap water comes at a price, but one that can be
   significantly less than alternatives such as bottled water.

•  Consumers must also recognize that their actions affect the quality of their source water and the
   level of treatment that is required to allow safe drinking water to flow from their taps.

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