News Release

Drinking water quality in the United States

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Researchers identify patterns in drinking water quality violations in the United States. Health-based violations of water quality standards occur in 7-8% of community water systems in the United States in any given year and can lead to public health problems. Maura Allaire and colleagues analyzed spatial and temporal trends in health-based water quality violations for 17,900 US community water systems from 1982 to 2015. Violations affected 9-45 million people, representing 4-28 % of the US population, during each year of the study period. The authors identified significant hotspots in Oklahoma and parts of Texas, which tend to include water systems with repeat violations. Violations were more frequent in rural areas than in urban areas; prevalence was especially high in low-income rural areas. Violations were less likely to occur in privately owned utilities and in systems that purchase treated water from other utilities. According to the authors, the vulnerability factors suggested by the findings could indicate the types of systems that might benefit from assistance and targeted public policy.

Article #17-19805: "National trends in drinking water quality violations," by Maura Allaire, Haowei Wu, and Upmanu Lall.

MEDIA CONTACT: Maura Allaire, University of California, Irvine, CA; tel: 949-824-5797; e-mail: <maura.allaire@uci.edu>

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