Search Results (3)

Although the United States Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) theoretically ensures drinking water quality, recent studies have questioned the reliability and equity associated with community water system (CWS) service. This study aimed to identify SDWA violation differences (i.e., monitoring and reporting (MR) and health-based (HB)) between Virginia CWSs given associated service demographics, rurality, and system characteristics. A novel geospatial methodology delineated CWS service areas at the zip code scale to connect 2000 US Census demographics with 2006–2016 SDWA violations, with significant associations determined via negative binomial regression. The proportion of Black Americans within a service area was positively associated with the likelihood of HB violations. This effort supports the need for further investigation of racial and socioeconomic disparities in access to safe drinking water within the United States in particular and offers a geospatial strategy to explore demographics in other settings where data on infrastructure extents are limited. Further interdisciplinary efforts at multiple scales are necessary to identify the entwined causes for differential risks in adverse drinking water quality exposures and would be substantially strengthened by the mapping of official CWS service boundaries. Full article

Issues surrounding water infrastructure, access, and quality are well documented in the Central Appalachian region of the United States. Even in cases where residents have in-home piped point-of-use (POU) water, some rely on alternative drinking water sources for daily needs—including water collection from roadside springs. This effort aims to better understand and document spring usage in this region by identifying the factors that influence drinking water source selection and comparing household and spring water quality to Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) health-based and aesthetic contaminant recommendations. Households were recruited from communities surrounding known springs in three states (Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia). First- and second-draw, in-home POU tap water samples were collected from participating households and compared to samples collected from local springs on the same day. Samples were analyzed for fecal indicator bacteria and inorganic ions. Study participants completed surveys to document perceptions of household drinking water and typical usage. The majority of survey participants (82.6%) did not trust their home tap water due to aesthetic issues. Water quality results suggested that fecal indicator bacteria were more common in spring water, while several metallic ions were recovered in higher concentrations from household samples. These observations highlight that health risks and perceptions may be different between sources. Full article

Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) are receiving global attention due to their persistence in the environment through wastewater effluent discharges and past improper industrial waste disposal. They are resistant to biological degradation and if present in wastewater are discharged into the environment. The US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) issued drinking water Health Advisories for PFOA and PFOS at 70 ng/L each and for the sum of the two. The need for an enforceable primary drinking water regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) is currently being assessed. The USEPA faces stringent legal constraints and technical barriers to develop a primary drinking water regulation for PFOA and PFOS. This review synthesizes current knowledge providing a publicly available, comprehensive point of reference for researchers, water utilities, industry, and regulatory agencies to better understand and address cross-cutting issues associated with regulation of PFOA and PFOS contamination of drinking water. Full article