| In 1974, Congress enacted the Safe Drinking Water Act for the purpose of regulating public water systems throughout the country and ensuring the safety of public drinking water, as well as protecting sources of drinking water such as lakes, rivers, springs, reservoirs, and groundwater. Regulation of public water systems is overseen by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The Safe Drinking Water Act authorizes the EPA to identify contaminants of drinking water that may threaten public health, whether naturally-occurring or man-made, and determine national standards for maximum safe levels of those contaminants, which the EPA promulgates in national drinking water regulations. EPA regulations also mandate certain treatments for the elimination or minimization of some contaminants. The EPA also provides guidance and information to states and water system operators, conducts analysis of drinking water, and regulates groundwater injection of wastes as a disposal method. The EPA is also authorized to take steps to ensure that public water systems comply with the standards set by the EPA.
Although the federal government, through the EPA, has ultimate regulatory power over drinking water systems, most states conduct direct oversight over their own drinking water under the Safe Water Drinking Act and EPA regulations, which the EPA authorizes states to do after they apply for and are granted "primacy." In order to obtain primacy, a state must adopt standards which meet or exceed federal standards and ensure that the water systems within the state comply with state standards. After obtaining primacy, the state becomes responsible for actively managing its public water supply, including the operation of water systems, the education and certification of water system operators, and the implementation of programs for the protection of water sources. States are eligible for EPA grants for public water improvement and protection programs, and the EPA will assist states in establishing a state fund to finance the costs of water system improvements.
Amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act impose additional requirements on both the EPA and states and their water system operators. Above all, the Safe Drinking Water Act gives the public the right to know what is in its drinking water; thus, water systems are required to keep the public informed of any problems with the water in their systems and report to the public as to their systems' compliance with drinking water regulations. Public water systems of a certain size are required to issue reports to their customers annually concerning the sources of the systems' water and to list contaminants present in the water supplies along with their levels and the possible health risks posed by those contaminants. Water system operators are required to be certified as meeting minimum guidelines established by the EPA. States are required to assess sources of public drinking water with an eye towards the potential for contamination of those sources as well as the water sources' vulnerability to contamination. Copyright 2010 LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. |