When you turn on your tap and use the water, do you ever wonder if it is clean enough for you to drink? Did you ever wonder how your Public Water Supplier gets that Drinking Water to your tap? Who tests it and who oversees its standards? Who Enforces The Safe Drinking Water Act?
Unless supplied by Private Well, your Community is responsible for supplying, clean drinking water. Its Standards are regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) in 1974-86 & 1996 which gives each State the right to enforce its own drinking water standards based on EPA’s standards & methods.
Drinking water that is clean and safe plays a critical role in society’s success, health, and economy. Before drinking water was treated and researched, long ago, diseases like cholera and typhoid fever killed large parts of our population. Clean Drinking Water is extremely important to our civilization.
Who Enforces the Safe Drinking Water Act
Today, the US supplies the cleanest water in the world, leading the way with high standards that prevent those diseases that were prevalent in society to disappear. We take it for granted but we open our tap and there it is clean fresh drinking water. How does it get there?
Long before the water gets to your home, water starts out at its source. Some state sources’ of Drinking Water are Surface-water like Lakes Rivers or streams. Some cities or towns take their water from aquifers that are located deep in the earth.
Public water suppliers take this water, treat it, according to strict government standards and send it off to the homes in the community. These source waters are also under the watchful eye of the EPA and are examined and tested continuously to prevent pollution long before it gets to the community’s Public Water System
How Is Drinking Water Treated
The Water cycle contributes to the source of raw water which is untreated drinking water to the stream and aquifers of the river and supplies us continually with the resource.
Problems do develop when the development of the landscape changes and adds contaminants to the drinking water supply. This raw water needs to be treated by the Public water supplier before it’s consumed by the public. This happens in stages
- The Raw Water is pumped to the source of water. This could be a reservoir stream or river wherever that source is nearby to the city or town.
- Raw Water is treated by adding coagulants that will remove particles and sediments in the water. The coagulants are chemical that helps clump the particles together so they are easier to remove. These particles are called Floc.
- There are two ways to add the coagulant to the water. One way is to mix it with air. If you do this the floc will stay on top of the water. The other way is to add it without air and the floc will sink to the bottom.
- Either way, the result is the particle and sediment are separated from the water in the next stage called Clarification. Separating solids from liquids is a big part of treatment.
- Clarification Tanks separate that floc that sinks to the bottom or floats to the top by slowing the flow down and giving it some time to happen. The floc is removed from the system. Either scraped off the top or pumped off the bottom.
- Filtration In Filtration the water is pulled through filter beds of sand gravel or activated carbon.
- Disinfection is the last step in the process. It kills microorganisms that are living in the water. Chlorine has been used for over 100 years is still used for this process along with newer methods like Ozone which is super-charged oxygen bubbles that scrub the water eliminating and killing leftover viruses, bacteria, and germs that have made it through the process. Raw Water is now Drinking Water.
Safe Drinking Water Act Requirements
The United States Environmental Protection Agency EPA authorized under the Safe Drinking Water Act SAWA regulates all Public Water Systems in the Country.
There are almost 155,000 water suppliers that are under the jurisdiction of the Agency. Almost 90% of all drinking water comes from Public Water Suppliers. The rest of the US Drinking water comes from wells, which are not watched or enforced because they are considered private supplies and not subject to regulation.
The Safe Drinking Water Act establishes parameters and limits on certain contaminant levels.
There are 80 potentially harmful microorganisms, organic and inorganic chemicals, metals, and radionuclides.
The MCLs or the Maximum Contaminant Levels are what the EPA regulates and enforces. The list is revised and changed to add newly discovered contaminants and changes in the MCLs of the 80 already established ones.
Microorganisms that are sometimes found in Drinking Water are called Pathogens and come from animal or human waste. They also can be found in recreational water.
Chemical contaminants sometimes found in Drinking Water include medals pesticides and fertilizers.
Radionuclides are contaminants that are released from laboratories and Nuclear Power Plants.
Water Quality Issues
The Community where you live and who supplies the Drinking Water is responsible to test your Drinking Water and report the results publicly to the State where you live. From there the results are added to a database where it is given to the EPA.
The SDWA authorizes the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) to set national health-based standards for drinking water to protect against both naturally occurring and man-made contaminants that may be found in drinking water. The EPA, individual states, and water systems then work together to make sure that these standards are met.
The Data Base records all information from the state and their communities and every 6 years compiles information gathered by the State for the National Review.
The Federal EPA does a complete review and assessment of each Drinking Water System and makes the necessary changes in regulations. So, in the end, they are the sheriff in your town. The information from States,
EPA and the Communities where you live change constantly because of new discoveries with contaminants. New developments that are scientific in nature change every day. Your community employs certified operators and Professional Laboratories to ensure that the Drinking Water that’s coming from your faucet meets those requirements and more. Having come from this line of work myself, I can honestly attest to the hard work and dedication of the people in charge of making sure the public has a safe clean product.
Is Bottled Water Safe To Drink
What people don’t seem to realize is that Bottle Water is not regulated and controlled by the EPA. The US Food and Drug Administration regulates what goes into your Bottle of Water.
The FDA generally uses the same standards as the EPA but as would think cannot regulate the same as them.
Here is the problem even though the Bottle Water companies are supposed to be testing the same for microbial or chemical contaminants, they are not forced to report any of their findings to the public or to the Government. Even though the idea of drinking water from a bottle is healthier for you, there’s really no proof that it is.
The quality of the Bottle Water is reported as the source of the water and how it was treated but that is according to the manufacturer.
It doesn’t mean that your favorite Bottle is not better than your tap water as some people are saying. It just means that Bottle Water may not be as safe as drinking water from your Municipal supplier. This is because of the above-board monitoring testing and regulations of the State and Federal Authorities.
Then again you can’t be 100% sure of anything these days and even though your Public Water Suppliers do a good job, there are always unseen dangers. The problems with plastics that end up in landfills and oceans are going to be a nightmare for future generations. There are reports that it takes hundreds of years for a plastic bottle to degrade in a garbage dump.
Safe Drinking Water
There are opposite opinions that are negative toward the purity of Drinking Water in the world today. The belief is that the 35-year-old federal laws that were made to improve the standards of Drinking Water are outdated and don’t work anymore. Some Scientist believes that the water Americans drink cause cancer and other serious illnesses.
Only 91 contaminants are tested in the water today yet there are over 60,000 chemicals used in the United States according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Government and independent scientists have scrutinized these chemicals for years. They have identified hundreds of chemicals that could cause cancer and other diseases that are not regulated. Their recent studies have determined that chemicals that are being tested cause harm at lower levels than are being allowed by law.
Many of these Standards have not been updated since the 1980s. Some have not been changed since 1974.
As many as 62 million Americans have been exposed to various types of chemicals that are now deemed unsafe by the scientist creating the study. Even though operators of Drinking Water providers on a local level tried to go above and beyond what is required it did not matter.
The officials that run these local Public Water Systems were met with resistance.
In California, A city official found that some chemicals in their water supply were only dangerous when exposed to sunlight. The city official covered the reservoir where their Drinking Water was stored with black balls that floated on top of the reservoir and blocked the sun.
People complained about the cosmetic look of the neighborhoods surrounding the man-made lake. Soon public pressure led to political pressure halting the practice even though it was working. People only understand what they see and not what they can’t. The community was worried that the plastic balls polluted the reservoir.
Thousands of chemicals have not been analyzed properly because of cases like this where some chemicals change when added with elements found in nature that are not involved with the original testing in the controlled setting of the laboratory. Like the Sun.
People today question everything and don’t necessarily believe everything that they are told as they used to, especially by the government. New chemical compounds are discovered every day. There really isn’t any fault to assign, it’s just more industrial products are being used every day and what was economically feasible yesterday for a study is not economically important today.
Is My Drinking Water Safe
- Check your Water Bill. Every year your water supplier must by the law of the EPA provide you with a Consumer Confidence Report that shows the water quality and test results of your Drinking Water. Every Water provider has to provide this to their customers by July 1st of every year.
- You can use a tool from EPA that you can click your State and County and get your provider and information on your Drinking Water source.
- Link directly to the EPA Source page to find out more information on the condition of your source of Drinking Water. The list of known and possible contaminants in you’re Drinking Water.
The Solution for Ensuring Clean Drinking Water
Water Filtration-Water Filtration will ensure that whatever water is coming out of your faucet or into your home is purified to the utmost condition that is possible with the newest technology available.
Reverse Osmosis has the ability to remove almost every contaminant known today. Whether you use a whole house filter or a countertop unit they provide a layer of protection that you won’t find anywhere else.
The proof is documented and questions about the mineral content being removed don’t equate to not using one. There are new exciting products that adjust Mineral and Alkaline content after removing things like Arsenic which is being recognized as more of a danger than once thought.
There is new research that water throughout the whole earth is more connected than we thought. Linked together deep underground. Even if Drinking Water providers test and analyze 1000 times a day, once the water leaves the treatment plant the system grid of pipes and pumps along with the pipes on your street right through you’re home can pollute your Drinking Water.
The last point of discharge before you consume it is your faucet. Take control. Take no chances and ensure the quality of the most important resource to human beings on the earth.
JimGalloway Author/Editor
The Hidden Dangers of Drinking Water by Dr. Susanne Bennett
Tap Water could be Unhealthy by Charles Duhigg New York Times
Overview of the Safe Drinking Water Act
