Despite advances in technology and increasing regulation, many in the United States still face challenges accessing safe drinking water. Keeping America’s water safe requires new approaches to monitoring, tracking, and treatment.
In April 2024, the EPA added six new contaminants to those it regulates under the Safe Drinking Water Act to reduce illnesses and prevent thousands of deaths associated with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). These new contaminants are in addition to the more than 90 contaminants the EPA already regulates. Since the original promulgation of the Safe Drinking Water Act in 1974, the number of contaminants regulated has increased threefold (PDF), and the number of contaminants identified is expanding even faster. As monitoring technologies have improved and health studies have been refined, the thresholds at which a health risk is posed by specific contaminants has consistently decreased.
Still, the Safe Drinking Water Act has hardly achieved its eponymous mission. In Jackson, MS, 150,000 residents were without water for months in 2022, but water quality concerns persisted for much longer. In 2014, 500,000 residents in Toledo were without water for three days when an algal bloom in Lake Erie caused increased level of microcystin toxins in their water source. Numerous cities cannot meet current water quality standards due to a combination of factors such as lack of funding or management failures.
As the number and diversity of drinking water contaminants that need to be removed at drinking water facilities increase, the complexity of treatment also increases.
As the number and diversity of drinking water contaminants that need to be removed at drinking water facilities increase, the complexity of treatment also increases. Creating new standards for emerging contaminants and making existing standards for well-known contaminants is necessary to protect human health. However, current drinking water plants already cannot keep up with long-standing regulations: These new standards are stressing an already failing system.
Meeting the Challenge
Addressing America’s complex water quality challenges demands a more holistic approach to monitoring contaminants and new infrastructure approaches for removal of harmful contaminants.
Currently the Safe Drinking Water Act regulates contaminants one by one, but with increasing numbers of chemicals being released into the environment and improved information about the level and type of contaminants that are harmful to human health, this approach is too slow to keep up. The United States needs a regulatory framework that is more adaptable and able to keep pace.
Any new regulatory approach also needs to consider the source of different pollutants. Contaminants from upstream sources, such as discharges from coal-fired power plants or manufacturing, are much easier and less expensive to regulate at the source than remove from water sources downstream. For example, 3M has stated it will halt PFAS production by 2025 after a 2023 settlement in which it agreed to pay at least $10.3 billion to compensate water providers for PFAS pollution.
Currently, national monitoring of water sources is managed by the U.S. Geological Survey, but the number of monitoring stations has declined due to funding constraints. The Environmental Protection Agency requires monitoring of drinking water sources by individual public water systems under the Safe Drinking Water Act and by industries discharging to waterways under the Clean Water Act. The cost of monitoring drinking water for contamination tends to fall on public water systems, which operate independently, making tracking the overall water quality picture difficult. The United States needs a federally funded and connected water quality monitoring system that allows for contaminants to be monitored at the point of discharge, in water bodies across the United States, and in drinking water sources.
The burden of water pollution, the health effects, and the treatment costs, disproportionately fall on marginalized and low-income communities.
Finally, drinking water infrastructure is aging and in need of repair across the United States. New federal funding streams that allocate over $50 billion for water infrastructure present an opportunity to leverage the latest treatment technologies to make water monitoring and treatment more resilient. As these systems are upgraded, it’s worth considering that treatment doesn’t have to be centralized. Technologies like modular and scalable membrane filtration and reverse osmosis systems provide new and more efficient ways to provide safe and clean drinking water to residents.
Importantly, the burden of water pollution, the health effects, and the treatment costs disproportionately fall on marginalized and low-income communities. This environmental justice challenge is recognized by EPA and other federal entities in how they prioritize funding.
America’s current regulatory and infrastructure systems are insufficient to make good on the promise of the Clean Water Act. Investing in new infrastructure and updated monitoring systems could help guarantee that public water supplies are free of contaminants and safe to drink.
– Sara Stullken and Rebecca Tisherman, Published courtesy of RAND.
