National Rural Water Association                           Contact: Mike Keegan
Immediate Release (August 31, 2000)                        202/955-3130   keegan@bookcase.com

Minnesota, Rhode Island, California, Texas,
and New York Run Top Environmental
Programs for Drinking Water Protection

(Washington, DC) The National Rural Water Association released a study ranking the effectiveness of state environmental programs for drinking water safety. The following states’ drinking water compliance and health rates placed them in the top five for most effective environmental programs.

1. Minnesota
2. Rhode Island
3. California
4. Texas
5. New York

Rural Water's 45 state associations requested the study to compare the effectiveness of state programs in complying with EPA's environmental standards for drinking water.  The study analyzed the last 4 years of EPA’s published National Public Water Systems Compliance Reports which track the overall success of each state's effectiveness in administering the federal drinking water safety program under the Safe Drinking Water Act last reauthorized in 1996.

The U.S. EPA relies on this data to make conclusions on the status of drinking water safety in their reports, Congressional Testimony, and public education materials.

Mike Keegan, policy analyst, said, "drinking water protection is perhaps the most important federal environmental program to the public’s immediate and long-term health. The EPA rules are incredibly complex and thorough -- often requiring daily monitoring of drinking water quality and regulating upwards of a hundred contaminants at levels in the parts per billion. Drinking water protection is one of the oldest and most established federal environmental programs under the EPA. It's essential that EPA is able to make comparative evaluations of the effectiveness of state programs or there would be no need for a national program. The study uses EPA’s data to identify how states score with EPA’s requirements. EPA has the authority to approve each state program and can rebuke it any time if it is not satisfied with state administration of the program."

This study uses EPA compliance data to measure environmental protection and safety of our states’ drinking water supply programs.

The Ranking Methodology

The study analyzed five EPA reports published over the past 4 years.

The EPA reports include state by state assessments of compliance with regulations, which have been converted into each state's "rate" of compliance with federal drinking water standards.

Table One represents findings from the first two reports, which measure each state’s compliance with EPA’s "health" standards (violations of treatment requirements and maximum contaminant levels).  This compliance rate does not include violations for reporting and monitoring requirements.  This rate is the percentage of water systems with a "health" violation as contained in the EPA report (last column). The lower the percentage, the fewer the water systems violating "health" standards.

Table Two represents the following three reports which measure each states’ compliance with every EPA requirement (including monitoring and report requirements). Compliance with each criteria is averaged over the past 3 years and the states are ranked according to their success in overall compliance.  A rate is calculated by dividing the total number of water systems in each state by the number of violations with federal regulations. The lower the rate, the more effective that state has been in complying with EPA rules per community.

Table Three combines the two sets of rankings from Table One and Two and averages these two rankings to calculate the final ranking of most effective state program.

The Federal Drinking Water Program

Through the Public Water System Supervision (PWSS) program, EPA implements and enforces drinking water standards to protect public health. The public drinking water systems that EPA, and delegated states and tribes, regulate provide drinking water to 90 percent of Americans. These public drinking water systems serve at least 25 people or 15 service connections for at least 60 days per year. EPA sets standards, monitoring requirements, public notice requirements and other regulations that states and water systems are mandated to administer under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act.

Public Availability of the Data

EPA has published the five reports (listing state by state compliance) on the internet. The reports are available on the net at:

For More Information Check These Internet Links

• EPA’s Compliance Reports
• EPA Press Release on Compliance Reports
• EPA Congressional Testimony Featuring Reports’ Findings
• EPA’s State Drinking Water Programs Homepage
• History of the U.S. Drinking Water Program
• EPA’s Drinking Water Regulations
• Your State's Program Homepage
• Association of State Drinking Water Administrators
• EPA’s Safe Drinking Water Homepage
• American Water Works Association
• Natural Resources Defense Council
• Sierra Club
• National Rural Water Association