However, in the 3,500-page report Victorian Water Treatment Enters the 21st Century (Natural Resources Defense Council, 1994), Brian Cohen and Eric Olson documented some 250,000 violations of the SDWA that had occurred in 1991 and 1992. Cohen and Olson found that 43% of the water systems (serving about 120 million people) had committed violations.
While substantial progress has been made in reducing SDWA violations since that study was issued, the EPA estimated in its 2003 Factoids report that 81.7 million people were supplied with water from public services that registered one or more violations for health-based SDWA standards in 2003. This represented a 44% increase from the number of people affected by systems registering violations in 2002.
The report provides a breakdown of the violations by public water system type and size. In 2003, while the number of systems experiencing violations stayed relatively constant and the number of violations decreased from 2002, the population involved increased significantly. In 2003 a total of 81,672,086 people using water from community water systems were affected by violations of maximum contaminant level, treatment technique, monitoring and reporting, and/or other violations. (See Table 5.4, Table 5.5, and Table 5.6.) Very small water systems are more likely to violate regulations than all other sizes. Because of their size, manpower and funding to maintain and upgrade equipment and to meet monitoring and reporting requirements is extremely limited.
National Public Water System Compliance Report
The SDWA requires public water systems to submit compliance reports about the quality of their drinking water. Using this information, the EPA prepares an annual national compliance report. The report provides a summary of violations of the SDWA at the nation's public water supplies. It also evaluates and summarizes the annual compliance reports prepared by the states.
TABLE 5.4
Number of reported community water system violations of health-based standards, 1999–2003
| FY | Total |
| 2003 | 88,695 |
| 2002 | 99,495 |
| 2001 | 82,655 |
| 2000 | 70,353 |
| 1999 | 65,031 |
TABLE 5.5
Number of community water systems in violation of health-based standards, 1999–2003
| FY | Total |
| 2003 | 20,343 |
| 2002 | 20,232 |
| 2001 | 20,996 |
| 2000 | 21,308 |
| 1999 | 11,946 |
TABLE 5.6
Population affected by community water system violations of health-based standards, 1999–2003
| FY | Total |
| 2003 | 81,672,086 |
| 2002 | 56,644,512 |
| 2001 | 77,845,089 |
| 2000 | 62,921,077 |
| 1999 | 38,124,231 |
The United States has the world's safest water supply. The EPA and its state partners generally meet the goal of ensuring that consumers receive safe drinking water from public systems. According to the latest data available, in 2002, 73% of the public water supplies reported no SDWA violations, and 80% of consumers drank water from systems that reported no violations. Nationwide, the vast majority of the violations reported were for failure to meet monitoring and reporting requirements rather than for violation of a standard. These monitoring and reporting violations represent a lesser risk to the public than violations of health-based standards. For example, failure to collect one monitoring sample to be analyzed for twenty-seven contaminants would result in twenty-seven violations, even though the water is safe to drink. The EPA found no information suggesting that failure to report or monitor resulted in adverse health effects.
Ninety-four percent of the nation's public water systems reported no violations of health-based standards in 2002 (the latest data available). Health-based standards are MCLs or TTs. Among the 6% with violations, the Total Coliform Rule (TCR), which must be met by all types and sizes of public water systems, was the most frequently violated, representing 69% of all the health-based standards, consistent with other recent years. Coliform bacteria are generally no threat to humans, but their presence in drinking water can indicate a lapse in treatment, a break in the water line, and the possible presence of pathogens. Violations of the Surface Water Treatment Rule (SWTR) were responsible for 17% of the health-based violations.
Violations of health-based standards for chemicals (organic, inorganic, and radioactive contaminants) were 10% of the total health-based violations. Under the SDWA in 2002, states took a total of 891 enforcement actions against public water systems. During the same period, the EPA took 277 enforcement actions.
Private Wells
Several factors influence the quality of drinking water from wells. A 1997 Government Accountability Office report found that source water quality was key. Community systems are much more likely to treat their water than were private well owners. Construction standards are much more stringent in community systems than in private wells. Well contractors are licensed in some, but not all, states. In addition, problems are much more likely to occur in old wells.
Well owners remain responsible for continuing maintenance of private wells. Most states have ongoing programs, using various media, which make available to private well owners information about wells, how to protect their quality, and how to get the water tested.
Disease Caused by Contaminated Drinking Water
It is difficult to know the exact incidence of illness caused by contaminated drinking water. People may not know the source of their illnesses and may attribute them to food poisoning, chronic illness, or infectious agents. Some researchers believe that the actual number of drinking water disease cases is higher than the reported number, but the diseases are not reported because victims believe them to be "stomach upsets" and treat themselves.
Since 1971 the CDC and the EPA have maintained a surveillance system for collecting and reporting data that relate to waterborne-disease outbreaks. The latest report, Surveillance for Waterborne-Disease Outbreaks—United States, 2001–2002 (October 2004), includes data about outbreaks associated with water intended for drinking water and those associated with water used for recreation, such as beaches, hot tubs, and swimming pools. (See Figure 5.5.)
During the period 2001–02, nineteen states reported a total of thirty-one outbreaks of disease associated with water intended for drinking. Those outbreaks caused an estimated 1,020 people to become ill; fifty-one had to be hospitalized and seven died. (See Table 5.7.) The microbe or chemical that caused the outbreaks was identified in twenty-four of the outbreaks. Nineteen of the identified outbreaks were associated with pathogens, and five were associated with chemical poisoning.
Figure 5.6 shows that summer is the period when most outbreaks of waterborne diseases occur. The number of waterborne-illness outbreaks reported for the three-year period 2000 through 2002 was substantially higher than in the previous three years, but lower than for most years since 1971. (See Figure 5.7 and Figure 5.8.) In general, the number of outbreaks is down over the period shown, though some fluctuation from year to year is to be expected. Figure 5.9 shows outbreaks broken down by state.
Figure 5.10 shows the distribution of outbreaks during 2001 and 2002 by disease-causing agents, water system, water source, and deficiency in water treatment. The Legionella species of bacteria alone accounted for nearly one out of every five outbreaks. All bacteria, including Legionella, were responsible for about 29% of outbreaks. Parasites, viruses, and chemicals were each the cause of 16% of outbreaks. Most (92%) of the outbreaks were linked to groundwater sources.
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