National Enforcement and Compliance Initiative: Increasing Compliance with Drinking Water Standards

Problem

Compliance Advisors providing technical assistance in the field.

Nationally, about 320 million people in the United States are provided drinking water by approximately 50,000 regulated public water systems that serve water to residents year-round, referred to as Community Water Systems (CWSs). In 2021, more than 315 million Americans —roughly 95 percent of the U.S. population – received at least some of their drinking water from a CWS. In fiscal year (FY) 2022, over 18,000 CWSs had a least one Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) violation, and almost 3,000 CWSs had a health-based violation, resulting in 22 million Americans consuming water with at least one health- based violation of drinking water standards. These violations overall could expose even more millions of people to health risks.

Because of this continued threat, EPA is continuing this initiative for the FY 2024-2027 cycle. While OECA, working with the states, has made considerable progress in improving SDWA compliance, further improvement in compliance is needed.

Goals

The Increasing Compliance with Drinking Water Standards National Enforcement and Compliance Initiative or NECI began in FY 2020. EPA continues to pursue two fundamental goals with the NECI to protect public health.

* Primacy agencies are state tribal or territory agencies with primary authority to enforce drinking water regulations. EPA will support shared accountability for inspections and enforcement with primacy agencies by developing and enhancing EPA and primacy agency inspector skills, expertise, and capacity to monitor and enforce the SDWA.

FY 2024 MID-YEAR RESULTS

Inspections, Off-Site Compliance Monitoring, and Enforcement Actions

EPA’s strategy for improving compliance is focused on building EPA’s field presence by performing inspections and reviewing compliance records for CWSs and collaborating with primacy programs to support their compliance and enforcement activities.

As of the second quarter of the fiscal year (Q2), EPA led or accompanied states on 85 CWS inspections, and performed off-site compliance monitoring of 60 systems. These activities evaluated compliance with the National Primary Drinking Water Rules (NPDWRs) under SDWA Section 1412/1414 and other applicable requirements of the SDWA as needed. EPA concluded SDWA enforcement actions at 66 systems.

In addition to evaluating compliance with the NPDWRs, 28 of the 85 inspections also evaluated compliance with SDWA Section 1433, which sets forth requirements to ensure systems are evaluating threats like cybersecurity, climate change, and more. These inspections assessed compliance with the initial Risk and Resilience Assessment and Emergency Response Plan requirements of SDWA Section 1433. 49 systems were addressed – either determined to be in compliance or subject to enforcement.

EPA reduced the number of CWSs in longstanding noncompliance by addressing 70 systems (15.6%) of the 450 systems identified as top violators. Top violators are systems that have difficulty resolving their compliance concerns or CWSs with formal enforcement action that have long standing unresolved health-based violations. This designation is to ensure problems with the greatest impact on public health receive the highest priority and are appropriately addressed in a manner that will produce timely correction of long-term violations. Where Top Violator systems have not yet returned compliance, EPA and states have taken actions to ensure these systems can achieve compliance, either through technical assistance, further enforcement, and/or other appropriate actions.

chart for Compliance Monitoring Activities - Community Water System, image

chart for Case Conclusions - Community Water System image

Improved System Performance with Compliance Advisors

The Agency launched the Compliance Advisors for Sustainable Water Systems program in fiscal year (FY) 2020 to provide effective on-the-ground technical assistance to help community water systems achieve and sustain environmental compliance. EPA assisted 98 systems in the first and second quarter of FY 2024. Over 50% of these systems are in communities that are overburdened and under resourced with potential environmental justice concerns. EPA is also currently supporting 22 Tribal systems nationwide. Assistance includes recommendations to improve system compliance, development of system operation protocols, resource evaluations, and operator training.

Inspector Capacity and Technical Expertise

In FY 2024, EPA hosted its first advanced, in-person SDWA Inspector Training for 70 EPA and state inspectors. To support credentialing of new inspectors, EPA offered the Public Water System Supervision (PWSS) Inspector Fundamentals Training to EPA and state inspectors, with 312 participants completing the four-day training. EPA also provided four on-the-job (OJT) trainings to 12 new inspectors.