Tag: safe drinking water act

The Safe Drinking Water Act turns 50

Published on December 17th, 2024 by - Blog Posts

The law that protects the quality of America’s more than 170,000 public drinking water supplies is 50 years old as of Monday, December 16. While the Safe Drinking Water Act’s results have been mixed, its purpose and impact have become ever more relevant over the past five decades.

The potential impact of unsafe drinking water was demonstrated in Milwaukee when, in 1993, inadequate treatment led to a disease outbreak resulting from cryptosporidium, which affected 403,000 people and resulted in at least 69 deaths. The lead contamination of Flint’s water supply, beginning in 2014, exposed about 99,000 people to high levels of the neurotoxin. Flint officials failed to properly treat lead when the city switched to a new water supply, leading to concerns about high lead levels in children. The water switch also contributed to an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease—a potentially life-threatening form of pneumonia—that killed at least 12 residents.

The backbone of the law is the setting of enforceable national standards for primary contaminants ranging from microorganisms to human-made chemicals like PCBs.

For each regulated contaminant, EPA sets a health goal based on risk (including risks to the most sensitive people, e.g., infants, children, pregnant women, the elderly, and the immuno-compromised). EPA then sets a legal limit for the contaminant in drinking water or a required treatment technique.

Earlier this year, EPA set standards for six PFAS compounds, the first time any of this family of chemicals has been thus regulated.

The Safe Drinking Water Act covers 1,400 community water supplies and 10,000 noncommunity water supplies in Michigan. (A noncommunity system provides water for drinking or potable purposes to 25 or more persons at least 60 days per year or has 15 or more service connections.)

Michigan community water supplies had 35 chemical standards violations in 2023: four for perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) at one supply, four for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) at two supplies, 23 for arsenic at seven supplies, and four for Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate at two supplies. There were 21 new or continuing chemical MCL violations reported in 2023 at noncommunity water systems. There were nine supplies that incurred arsenic MCL violations, seven had nitrate MCL violations, and five were issued PFAS MCL violations.

The standards do not cover private water wells serving fewer than 25 people. Michigan has over 1.1 million such wells.

Amendments to the law in 1986 and 1996 expanded the law’s scope to include prevention of drinking water contamination and education. Each customer of a public water supply is supposed to receive an annual report, called a consumer confidence report, on the quality of that supply and any exceedances of the drinking water standards in the previous year.

The law also provides low-interest loans to communities to upgrade their safe drinking water infrastructure. Michigan’s Drinking Water State Revolving Fund is the source of the state loans. The funding available, however, falls far short of Michigan’s drinking water infrastructure needs. A 2021 analysis of the state’s infrastructure needs found that Michigan has an annual unmet need of $860 million to $1.1 billion for drinking water treatment systems and upgrades.

“Many of Michigan’s water systems are older than the Safe Drinking Water Act itself,” Phil Roos, the director of Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Environment noted this fall. “Many systems are over 50 years old, with some approaching a century of service. Decades of underinvestment have left many communities struggling to maintain critical infrastructure.”

Regulating the Victims: The Backwards Nature of the Federal Safe Drinking Water Act

Published on February 22nd, 2023 by - Blog Posts

When Americans think of environmental laws, they tend to think of standards that control the pollution released by businesses, industries, sewage plants, and incinerators. This puts the stewardship duty and cost on those who generate the pollution, and provides an economic incentive to reduce waste.

To an extent, taxpayers are subsidizing the private sector instead of requiring it to eliminate or sharply reduce the pollution that ends up in drinking water.

There’s a major exception, however, that relates directly to public health: The federal Safe Drinking Water Act regulates the members of the public being polluted, rather than holding the polluters themselves accountable. This is a backwards policy. Here’s how it works: To make sure the public is not exposed to unsafe levels of contaminants, the act requires operators of public drinking water treatment plants to meet standards for limits on chemical and conventional pollutants that others have generated. To an extent, taxpayers are subsidizing the private sector instead of requiring it to eliminate or sharply reduce the pollution that ends up in drinking water.

Upstream Concerns in Ann Arbor

A recent Bridge Magazine article told this tale through the example of Ann Arbor. The Southeast Michigan city, like many others, is constantly scrambling to address both imminent and long-term contaminants released upstream of its drinking water intake in the Huron River.

Brian Steglitz, Ann Arbor Area Public Services Administrator, is quoted as expressing the view that state and federal environmental agencies should identify pollution sources that affect public drinking water supplies and work to eliminate them, rather than imposing new duties on the drinking water suppliers. Steglitz admits federal action is unlikely: “Waiting for the EPA is just not going to be the solution any longer, because they’re just too slow,” he said. 

The problem affects water supplies across Michigan. PFAS chemicals have been detected in public drinking water supplies, as has nitrate, according to the state’s 2021 drinking water violations report. 

Another approach would be to assess the costs of treating drinking water on those who created it.

Farm Runoff in Des Moines, Iowa

Another approach would be to assess the costs of treating drinking water on those who created it. Des Moines, Iowa, tried that. The city is forced to pay for treatment of its drinking water sources to remove nitrate pollution that largely comes from upstream agriculture. Nitrate is linked with colorectal cancer, thyroid disease, and neural tube defects as well as methemoglobinemia in young children. Running a special nitrate cleaning facility can cost the public $10,000 a day.

In 2015, Des Moines Water Works sued upstream counties to reduce manure and fertilizer runoff into the city’s drinking water supply. But a court tossed the lawsuit, saying the question was more appropriate for the Iowa legislature.

With water priorities high on the current legislative agenda, now is the time for our public drinking water suppliers to put the costs back on the upstream polluters—where it belongs.

Prevention Is Best

“The whole thing would be a lot cheaper,” Bonnifer Ballard, executive director of the Michigan Section of the American Water Works Association, “if we just protected our source of water to begin with.”

Michigan is not Iowa. With water priorities high on the current legislative agenda, now is the time for our public drinking water suppliers to put the costs back on the upstream polluters—where it belongs. “The whole thing would be a lot cheaper,” Bonnifer Ballard, executive director of the Michigan Section of the American Water Works Association, “if we just protected our source of water to begin with.”