United States                 Office of Water                EPA 816-F-97-008
                    Environmental Protection          (4606)                     September 1997
                    Agency	


 &EPA   SAFE  DRINKING  WATER

                INFORMATION IN  ENVIROFACTS

 "Putting information about local pollution into the hands of the public is the single most
 effective, common-sense tool available for protecting human health and the environment. "
 — United States Vice President Al Gore

 "All communities have a right to know about the pollution of their air, their water and their
 land. " - Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Carol Browner


       Information about your drinking water is now available at the click of a mouse, as
 EPA's Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water teams up with Envirofacts to provide
 consumers important information about the water that comes out of their taps.

 What is Envirofacts?

       Envirofacts is an EPA website making environmental data easily accessible to anyone with
 Internet access. Already used to provide environmental data in areas such as industrial emissions to air
 and water, Envirofacts now contains drinking water data. Envirofacts is free of charge, and accessible via
 the World Wide Web at http://www.epa.gov/enviro.

 What drinking water information is available?

 Envirofacts can answer drinking water questions such as:
 >     Does my drinking water come primarily from ground water or surface water (lakes, rivers,
      streams) sources?
 >•     How many people are served by my drinking water system?
 >•     Has my water system violated EPA's regulations for safe drinking water in the last ten years?
 >•     What actions were taken to correct violations?

      Envirofacts users will be able to access fact sheets providing more detailed information about
 drinking water contaminants and view more general information about drinking  water on EPA's Office
 of Ground Water and Drinking Water home page (http://www.epa.gov/OGWDW).

 How does Envirofacts work?

      From the Envirofacts home page, users should select Safe Drinking Water Information.
Information on drinking water is available by performing a query. Users select the state they wish to
search, and then can locate their water system by name, within a specific county, or by system size. A
report for each drinking water system lists violations (if any occurred) of EPA's  drinking water
regulations the water system has had in the last ten years, as well as. any enforcement actions taken to
bring the system back into  compliance. References for additional information are also available.

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