The Safe Drinking Water Act

In 1974, Congress enacted the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA).

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was empowered to set maximum levels of contamination allowable for health-threatening microbes, chemicals, and other substances. The EPA was also empowered to enforce these limits.

In 1986 and again in 1996, Congress made the SDWA more rigid.

The 1986 revision set strict timetables for establishing new water quality standards. Congress ordered water systems to monitor for substances not yet regulated. The SWDA limited polluting activities near public groundwater wells, named 83 contaminants, and outlined a program for adding 25 more every three years. For each contaminant, the Act specified the best available treatment.

The 1996 revisions helped to ensure that the regulations more accurately reflected the risk of adverse health effects, the rate of contaminant occurrence, and the estimated reduction in health risk. Additionally, states were given greater flexibility to implement the standards, and a revolving loan fund was established to help districts make improvements.

The cost to water districts became a significant burden.

Small- to medium-sized water districts face a costly challenge. Sophisticated monitoring, testing, and filtering technology are necessary to comply with the new regulations. Yet they simply don’t have the customer base to spread the cost easily. Instead, they are often faced with doubling or tripling their rates.

The EPA reports that more than 50,000 communities are violating the Safe Drinking Water Act.

The organization also states that in 25 years of the SDWA, “very small systems are still 50% more likely to incur violations than other system sizes.”