COMMUNITY WATER SUPPLY STUDY
Significance of National Findings
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE
Public Health Service
Environmental Health Service
Bureau of Water Hygiene
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COMMUNITY WATER SUPPLY STUDY
Significance of National Findings
Bureau of Water Hygiene
Environmental Health Service
U.S. Public Health Service
Department of Health, Education and Welfare
July, 1970
Washington, D. C.
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FOREWORD
The ecological crisis with which our Nation, and the
world, are today confronted has been building for many years,
Yet, for many, the magnitude of the damage which we have
inflicted on our environment, 1n Ignorance and carelessness,
has come as a recent, stunning surprise, However, the urgency
of our environmental problems can no longer be Ignored or
denied. President Nixon expressed the National mood about
these sobering realities when he declared that "the nineteen
seventies absolutely must be the years when America pays Its
debt to the past by reclaiming the purity of 1t§ air, Us
waters and our living environment,"
Of special concern 1s the fact that the waste products
of our highly urbanized and technological society — many of
them not even Identified — which pollute our land, air, and
water, persist In the environment, and react, one with another,
in comolex and little understood ways, to affect the life
cycles of plant, animal, and human organisms,
Our water resources, more perhaps than any other,
illustrate the interaction of all parts of the environment,
and also the recycling process that characterizes every
resource of the biosphere. Everything that man Injects Into
his environment — chemical, biological, or physical —
can ultimately find Its way Into the earth's water and these
contaminants must be removed, by nature or by man, before
the water is again potable,
Concern for our water quality until quite recently
has centered principally on the danger of bacteriological
contamination from Inadequately treated sewage discharged
into our rivers and streams, Today we are confronted with
the fact that chemical pollution of source waters poses additional,
and possibly even more difficult, problems. Moreover, we
deceive ourselves 1f we' assume that even the most complete and
effective treatment of municipal and industrial wastes can
ever remove all threats of water contamination.
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In a world subjected to growing burden of interacting
pollutants, many other sources of contamination exist, so
that the quality and safety of our drinking water must finally
depend upon constant vigilance and application of the best
techniques of water treatment and distribution.
That only recently has attention been focused on the
problems of maintaining safe drinking water is illustrative
of the dangerous complacency with which we, have viewed the
whole spectrum of environmental ills. This report by the
Bureau of Water Hygiene, Environmental Health Service, represents
the first real attempt to determine, on a nationwide basis,
the efficacy of current practices in water treatment and to
assess future prospects for maintaining safe, high quality
drinking water.
It may be concluded, on the basis of the survey findings,
that, while the overwhelming majority of the people of the
United States can be assured that the water they drink today
is safe, several million drink water containing potentially
hazardous amounts of chemical or bacteriological contamination.
Clearly there is an immediate need, in many localities, for
upgrading present water treatment and distribution practices.
Moreover, as in so many other aspects of our environmental
situation, the findings are not reassuring with regard to the
future. It seems abundantly clear that we will need, in the
years ahead, to give increasing attention to the broad problems
of water supply in order to assure the public of an adequate
supply of safe, drinking water on a continuing basis.
Charles C. Johnson, Jr.
Assistant Surgeon General
Admi ni strator
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SIGNIFICANCE OF THE NATIONAL
CMfrlUNITY WATER SUPPLY STUDY
A Statement by the
Director of the Bureau of Water Hygiene
PREFACE
Contemporary American society recognizes a host of
interrelated factors that determine the quality of urban life.
In addition to the basic needs -- food, clothing and shelter --
we have recently begun to recognize two other daily necessities
that were heretofore thought to be of unquestionable quality
and available in unlimited quantities; ample quantities of
clean air, from moment to moment, and safe drinking water,
from hour to hour.
The Community Water Supply Study concerns the current
and future healthfulness and dependability of the drinking
water supplied to over 150 million Americans by community water
supply systems. The remaining population drinks from private
supplies. The purpose of the study was to determine the
quality of drinking water being delivered to the over 18
million people in the study areas and the health risk factors
that enabled scientists and engineers to evaluate the ability
of these systems to continue to provide adequate supplies of
safe water now and in the future. The Analysis of National
Survey Findings of the National Community Water Supply Study
(July 1970) is based on a survey of 969 representative public
water supply systems located in nine areas of the Nation.
This statement attempts to place the technical findings into
a national perspective. It seeks to answer two questions about
the nation's water supplies: (1) Are well established standards
of good practice being applied to assure the quality and
dependability of water being delivered to consumers' faucets
today? and, (2) What needs to be done to assure adequate
quantities of safe drinking water in the future on a National
scale? While our study has helped provide answers to these
important questions, not all the discussion that follows in
this statement is derived solely from the results of this
single investigation.
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BACKGROUND
Americans generally assume that the water from their
faucets is healthful, and free of bacterial or chemical
contaminants that can bring disease. Usually, the assumption
is correct. The drinking water supplies in cities and towns
of the United States rank in quality, on the average, among
the best in the world. Nevertheless, there is cause for
serious concern about our drinking water. There are two good
reasons for this paradox.
To begin with, it cannot be maintained that al1 of our
drinking water is safe. It is true that the classical
communicable waterborne diseases of years past -- typhoid fever,
amoebic dysentery and bacillary dysentery -- were brought under
control by the 1930's. However, we still have outbreaks
of communicable disease from sewage contamination of water
supply systems in the United States. Recent outbreaks are
discussed later in this report. As we shall see in this
report, we found evidence of bacterially contaminanted water
being served to consumers in communities ranging in size
from less than 500 to 100,000 persons.
Disturbing as it is to find such evidence, there is
a second, more far reaching problem of considerable importance
to the country. That problem is the ability of all our
present municipal water supply systems to continue to deliver
water of good quality and adequate quantity in the decades
ahead to a rapidly rising population. This is made all the
more difficult by the growing amount of chemical pollutants
entering our lakes, streams and aquifers.
Current forecasts provide an indication of how much
water we will be needing in the future. According to one
calculation, we used 270 billion gallons of water per day
in 1965 in support of industry, agriculture, and for domestic
drinking purposes. By the year 2020, our water requirements.
are expected to exceed 1300 billion gallons each day. But
hydrologists estimate that the total usable surface water
supply from rainfall is only 700 bi11 ion gal Ions per day.
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Even today, when we return our used waters to streams
or lakes we find ourselves using them over and over again.
The need for multiple reuse of water will become greatly
amplified in major sections of the country in ye.ars ahead.
If the future population growth rate is only half of current
projections, and even where desalinization of salt and brackish
waters is a practical and economically feasible alternative,
major sections of the country will find it increasingly
necessary to practice multiple reuse in the years ahead.
Much of the future problem relates to the need for having
this water available when and where it is needed. For this
reason, ground water has emerged as a significant source
now accounting for more than 20 percent of the Nation's water
supply requirements.
Where both surface and ground sources are insufficient,
it will become necessary to directly recycle our wastewaters.
This means taking wastewaters and using them over again in
a closed system without first discharging them into our streams
and lakes. With our present technology we cannot use water
in this fashion for drinking, recreation or other intimate
uses. It is true that during the past decade, much has been
learned about the treatment of wastewaters for removal of
some organic substances and bacteria, and processes for
renovating wastewaters for direct reuse have even proceeded
to the pilot plant stage. But the reuse of wastewaters over
and over again presents us with new problems; with present
treatment processes, chemicals would be concentrated, and therefore,
new treatment processes must be developed; fail-safe warning
systems must be found; and new methods must be developed to
detect and remove such impurities as the pesticides and viruses
which currently are present in almost undetectable concentrations.
Little is known about the concentrations of carcinogens,
antibiotics or hormones present in wastewaters.
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Even though wastewater control efforts will be expanded
in the future and are sorely needed to minimize future
pollution of our drinking water sources, it is clear that water
pollution control efforts alone cannot assure a safe
drinking water quality. It is highly unlikely that even
the best conventional waste treatment will produce a
discharge of drinking water quality. As such, treatment does
not remove all of todays known potential toxicants or
biological agents prior to discharge. In addition, there are
pollutants which have an effect on source of drinking water
which are not subject to waste treatment. Such pollutants
are found in uncontrolled runoff from our fields and forests,
and from chemicals spilled in transportation accidents. Both
of these examples adversely affect quality at the community
water treatment plant intake. Both today and in the future,
delivery of adequate supplies of safe water at the consumer's
tap will be dependent upon properly designed, constructed
and operated municipal water treatment plants and distribution systems..
SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The National Community Water Supply Study was designed
to cover a variety of natural and demographic situations
across the country. It surveyed 969 public water systems --
in the State of Vermont and in eight standard metropolitan
statistical areas -- New York, New York; Charleston, West
Virginia; Charleston, South Carolina; Cincinnati, Ohio; Kansas
City, Missouri-Kansas; New Orleans, Louisiana; Pueblos Colorado;
and San Bernardino-Riverside-Ontario, California. The survey
investigated every public water system in each of the designated
areas. Twenty-two big city systems in the study areas served
over 13 million people. The remaining 947 systems served 5
million people in communities of less than 100,000 people and
760 of those 947 systems each served populations of less than
5,000 people.
The survey was not expected to provide a perfect random
sample of water supply systems throughout the country, but
the results are reasonably representative of the status of
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the water supply industry in the United States. As detailed
in the Analysis of National Survey Findings, and in the nine
supportive reports presenting findings for the specific study
areas, the Public Health Service Drinking Water Standards of
1962 were used to evaluate both the current quality of drinking
water and the health risks associated with the systems delivering
that water.
Each water supply system was investigated to determine
the quality of water being delivered to the consumer's tap,
the adequacy of physical facilities and operating procedures,
and the status of surveillance programs so necessary to the
delivery of adequate quantities of safe water on a continuing
basis consistent with the U.S. Public Health Service Drinking
Water Standards. Two or more water samples, depending on the
size of the community population, were analyzed for chemical,
bacteriological and other constituents. Each sample indicated
the quality of water at a particular point in time, and when all
samples from a given system were evaluated together, the average
quality of water being served during the study was determined.
The evaluation of each system was designed to identify
deficiencies which could lead to a system failure in the future
that, in turn, could lead to the delivery of potentially hazardous
water quality to the consumer. Past records were studied to
determine operational practices, including the frequency of past
failures of equipment. The current condition of physical facilities
was examined for such deficiencies as inadequate disinfection
equipment in the event of an emergency, or finished water reservoirs
poorly protected from contamination. The surveillance programs
were reviewed with an eye on such problems as collection of
bacteriological samples on a regular basis and the regular
inspection of the distribution systems to prevent recontamination
of the drinking water between the treatment plant and the
consumer's tap.
FINDINGS IN THE STUDY AREAS
Drinking water quality defects and health- risk problems
involving poor operating procedures, inadequate physical
facilities, and poor surveillance activities were found in both
large cities and small towns irrespective of geographical
location. In general, the larger systems, those serving in
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excess of 100,000 persons including the 10.4 million people
in the cities of New York, Cincinnati, Kansas City, and New
Orleans, were delivering an "average" acceptable water quality
consistent with the Drinking Water Standards. On this average
basis , 86 percent of the approximately 18 million people
covered by this study, or about 15.5 million served by 59
percent of the 969 systems investigated, were receiving good
water during the study. The larger systems also evidenced
better operation of treatment and distribution facilities.
While sanitary defects were found in larger systems, the
overall health risk was generally judged to be low, even though
improvements in operational procedures and physical facilities
are believed warranted in many instances.
Conversely, 41 percent of the 969 systems were delivering
waters of inferior quality to 2.5 million people. In fact,
360,000 persons in the study population were being served waters
of a potentially dangerous quality. This was particularly true
of community systems serving less than 100,000 persons. Even
where average quality was good, occasional samples were found
to contain fecal bacteria, lead, copper, iron, manganese and
nitrate and a few even exceeded the arsenic, chormium, and
selenium limits. After all, people do not drink "average"
water. They drink "samples" of water from their kitchen faucets
or a drinking fountain at work or play. It is particularly
important to note that communities of less than 100,000 people
evidenced a prevalence of the water-iqual i ty deficiencies and
health risk potential. Some of the very small communities
were even drinking water on a day-to-day basis that exceeded one
or more of the dangerous chemical limits, such as selenium,
arsenic or lead.
The major findings from the study, in the light of today's
water treatment technology are as follows:
QUALITY OF WATER BEING DELIVERED
* 36 percent of 2,600 individual tap water samples
contained one or more bacteriological or chemical
constituents exceeding the limits in the Public Health
Service Drinking Water Standards.
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...9 percent of these samples contained bacterial contamination
at the consumer's tap evidencing potentially dangerous quality.
..30 percent of these samples exceeded at least
one of the chemical limits indicating waters of
inferior q u a 1i ty.
..11 percent of the samples drawn from 94 systems
using surface waters as a source of supply
exceeded the recommended organic chemical limit
of 200 parts per billion.
STATUS OF PHYSICAL FACILITIES
* 56 percent of the systems evidenced physical deficiencies
including poorly protected groundwater sources,
inadequate disinfection capacity, inadequate clarification
capacity, and/or inadequate system pressure.
* In the eight metropolitan areas studied, the arrangements
for providing water service were archaic and inefficient.
While a majority of the population was served by one
or a few large systems, each metropolitan area also
contained small inefficient systems.
OPERATORS' QUALIFICATIONS
* 77 percent of the plant operators were inadequately
trained in fundamental water microbiology; and 46
percent were deficient in chemistry relating to their
plant operation.
STATUS OF COMMUNITY PROGRAMS
* The vast majority of systems were unprotected by
cross-connection control programs, plumbing inspection
programs on new construction, or continuing surveillance
programs .
STATUS OF STATE INSPECTION AND TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS
* 79 percent of the systems were not inspected by
State or County authorities in 1968, the last full
calendar year prior to the study. In 50 percent of
the cases, plant officials did not remember when, if
ever, a state or local health department had last
surveyed the supply.
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* An insufficient number of bacteriological samples
were analyzed for 85 percent of the water systems --
and 69 percent of the systems did not even analyze half
of the numbers required by the PHS Drinking Water
Standards.
NATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY FINDINGS
Well established standards of good practice, in terms
of the full application of existing technology, are not being
uniformly practiced today to assure good quality drinking
water. While most professionals hold the USPHS Drinking Water
Standards in high esteem, the study shows that an unexpectedly
high number of supplies, particularly those serving fewer than
100,000 people, exceeded either the mandatory or recommended
constituent levels of bacterial or chemical content, and a
surprisingly larger number of systems evidence deficiencies
in facilities, operation and surveillance.
The National significance can be placed in perspective
by considering the size-distribution of municipal water supply
systems that were the subject of comprehensive facilities
census conducted during 1963. At that time, 150 million
Americans were being served by 19,236 public water supply
systems including 73 million people dependent upon 18,837
small systems, each serving communities of less than 100,000
people. When these statistics are compared with the fact that
over 40 percent of the small systems investigated during
the current study evidenced current quality deficiencies
oji the average and both large and small communities were
judged to be giving inadequate attention to quality control
factors, there can be little doubt that this situation warrants
major National concern.
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Most of our municipal water supply systems were
constructed over 20 years ago. Since they were built, the
populations that many of them serve have increased rapidly --
thus placing a greater and greater strain on plant and
distribution system capacity. Many systems are already
plagued by an insufficient supply, inadequate transmission or
pumping capacity, and other known deficiencies that become most
evident during peak water demand periods. Moreover, when
these systems were built, not enough was known to design a
facility for the removal of toxic chemical or virus contaminants.
They were designed solely to treat raw water of high quality
for the removal of coliform bacteria. Such facilities are
rapidly becoming obsolete as demands rise for water. The task
in the future for our water treatment plants can be visualized
by examining our population trend. By the year 2000 -- only
30 years from now -- our present population of about 205
million is expected to spurt to 300 million. By that time,
it is expected that 187 million people (the total U.S.
population just eight years ago) will be concentrated in four
urban agglomerations -- on the Atlantic Coast, the Pacific
Coast, on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico and on the shores
of the Great Lakes. Most of the remaining population will
be living in cities of 100,000 or more.
In the past, communities and industries were in the
favorable position of being able to select the best source
of supply consistent with their quantity and quality requirements,
The demand for more water to quench the thirst of a growing
population and meet the needs of expanding industry have led
many people to ask how future quantity requirements will be
satisfied. Concurrently, expanding water use comes at a
time of greatly increased pollution of ground water aquifers,
as well as streams, lakes and rivers. Historically and
traditionally, ground water coming from its natural environment
has been considered of good sanitary quality -- safe to drink,
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if palatable. Nevertheless, 9 percent of the wells sampled
during this survey showed coliform bacterial contamination.
It seems fair to say that a similar situation prevails
nati onwi de.
Chemical contaminants in our environment have been on
the increase for about 25 years, due to the dramatic expansion
in the use of chemical compounds for agricultural, industrial,
institutional and domestic purposes. There are about 12,000
different toxic chemical compounds in industrial use today,
and more than 500 new chemicals are developed each year.
Wastes from these chemicals -- synthetics, adhesives, surface
coatings, solvents and pesticides -- already are entering our
ground and surface waters, and this trend will increase.
We know very little about the environmental and health impacts
of these chemicals. For example, we know very little about
possible genetic effects. We have difficulty in sampling and
analyzing them -- we have much greater difficulties in
determining their contribution to the total permissible body
burden from all environmental insults.
Consideration of the findings of this study leaves no
doubt that many systems are delivering drinking water of marginal
quality on the average, and many are delivering poor quality
in one or more areas of their water distribution systems today.
To add to this quality problem, the deficiencies identified
with most water systems justifies real concern over the
ability of most systems to deliver adequate quantities of safe
water in the future.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Modern facilities operated by qualified personnel under
adequate surveillance will provide high quality water with
the lowest possible risk that current technology can offer.
The following recommendations are made to those state and
municipal officials concerned with the responsibility for
safe, adequate water supply:
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* Apply available water treatment and distribution
technology, more intensively.
* Determine manpower needs of the state and county programs
now in order to develop a program to provide technical
assistance, training, and adequate surveillance to the
Nation's numerous community water supply systems.
* Upgrade the skills of personnel responsible for the
operations and maintenance of the water supply systems
themselves, particularly in the case of those systems
serving fewer than 100,000 people, through short courses,
seminars, and correspondence courses to employees
presently employed in the field as well as those wishing
to enter it.
* Expand state laboratory resources to add the capability
of routinely analyzing water samples for biological
and chemical agents of health significance.
* Provide educational opportunities in water hygiene
at the university level to assure the availability
of qualified personnel to meet existing and future
needs.
In addition to defining the need for improvements at
the state and community level, this study's findings also show
a need for research, development and planning to improve
current practices and to provide adequate supplies of safe
water in the future. The study clearly evidences the need
to develop:
* Improved systems including surveillance procedures, to
assure continuous and effective disinfection programs,
particularly in smaller communities.
* Additional engineering research to simplify and lower
the cost of removing excess nitrates and fluorides.
* Improved systems to control aesthetically undesirable
concentrations of iron, manganese, hydrogen sulfide,
and color, as well as taste and odor-causing organic
constituents.
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* Analytical surveillance techniques and control
procedures to eliminate the deterioration that is
occurring in water quality between the time the water
leaves the treatment plant and the time it reaches the
consumer.
* Improved planning to provide adequate quantities of
safe water to the majority of our people who live in
urban areas, and to assure optimum resource development
and utilization to meet the needs of major population
complexes.
History gives ample evidence of the inescapable penalties
paid by past civilizations which failed to provide for the
safety of their drinking water systems. Modern history
shows that such waterborne diseases as typhoid, dysentery, and
cholera are controllable and, in fact, were all but eliminated
in the United States by the 1930's by applying the principles
identified in the Drinking Water Standards. This study
demonstrates that we have begun to backslide, which in turn,
explains why it is that waterborne disease persists as evidenced
by the epidemic at Riverside, California in 1965 which affected
18,000 people, the 30 percent gastroenteritis attack rate in
Angola, New York in 1968 due to a failure in the disinfection
system, and the 60 percent infectious hepatitis attack rate
which afflicted the Holy Cross football team in 1969 as a result
of the ineffective cross-connection control procedures.
These recent episodes, reinforced by the findings of the
current study, provide ample evidence of the increasing potential
for similar episodes unless we improve water system operations
consistent with currently accepted standards of practice.
We must also recognize numerous voids in existing
technology which do not allow measurement of the current
effectiveness of existing procedures. The current Drinking
Water Standards do little more than mention viruses, neglect
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numerous inorganic chemicals which are known to be toxic
to man, and identify only one index that is supposed to cover
the entire family of organic chemical compounds. These
standards must be updated.
The need for knowledge about the health effects of
waterborne contaminants is acute. Research is required,
for example, to develop improved treatment control and
surveillance procedures for viruses. The chronic long-term
effects of chemical contaminants requires thorough investigation
For instance, we must determine the concentration levels at
which numerous contaminants, such as mercury, molybdenium or
selenium.cause adverse health effects. Similarly, we must
mount a major attack on a host of synthetic organic chemicals
which are growing at a rate of 500 new compounds per year.
In addition to the threats posed by such we!1-publicized
materials as pesticides, we now have to face a multitude of
new organic chemical compounds. Recognizing our relatively
fixed amount of ground and surface water supply, the increasing
water needs of the general population and industry, and the
need to reuse our available supplies to satisfy future demands,
we can no longer afford to "wait and see what happens." We
must begin to investigate before we introduce new compounds
into the environment.
All this research is essential if we are to maintain
at least the status quo for the current generation. These
are issues confronting scientists and engineers today at all
levels of government. But the overall water hygiene effort
is this generation's responsibility to future generations.
Indeed, answers to many of the currently identifiable research
problems of today must be gained quickly if the current and
future planners of our environment are to begin to formulate
rational, economic and effective plans for the continued
growth and development of our society.
James H. McDermott, P.E.
Di rector
Bureau of Water Hygiene
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