Drinking Water Database Opens Spigot on Local Stories

The online, searchable Safe Drinking Water Information System provides annual Consumer Confidence Reports on whether local drinking water systems across the United States meet federal standards. Photo: Polaristest via Flickr Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).

Reporter’s Toolbox: Drinking Water Database Opens Spigot on Local Stories

By Joseph A. Davis

Data journalism was meant for drinking water. Whether the stuff is fit to quaff or not, environmental journalists can find lots of stories that will quench their audience’s thirst.

Here’s where to look: the Safe Drinking Water Information System, or SDWIS, which is maintained by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and required by the Safe Drinking Water Act. It’s online and searchable (or was, the last time we looked during the federal government shutdown). To access it, start here.

The act requires more public disclosure than almost any other environmental law. The data is all there (mostly), although SDWIS is not that easy to use. It really helps if you know the official name of the drinking water system you are interested in. If you don’t, there are ways to discover it (or them).

 

You will discover that there are

more systems than you imagined

— and that the little ones far

outnumber the big ones.

 

You will discover that there are more systems than you imagined — and that the little ones far outnumber the big ones, even if the big ones serve more people.

A big metropolitan system (like Washington D.C.’s) can serve several states and counties. A Girl Scout summer camp’s well system may not even operate year-round. But it’s still a “community water system” that must meet the act’s requirements.

The keystone of the whole system is the Consumer Confidence Report. All systems that serve more than 10,000 people must issue one once a year. It tells people whether the water meets standards (or doesn’t), and what the contaminants of concern are.

Even today, not all contaminants are regulated. The family of 15,000-odd PFAS chemicals is an example. Also, private wells are usually not federally regulated.

 

Where the data comes from

In most instances, the data comes from the states, most of which have enforcement authority (“primacy”) delegated by the EPA. 

Where do the states get the data? From the local agencies or entities that actually run the systems.

Since it is legally required, the data, while far from perfect, is of better quality than a lot of what you get from the government.

It is also surprisingly well documented, although you may have to know your way around a drinking water lab to appreciate it.

 

How to use the data smartly

It is worth knowing what the contaminants of concern are in the geographic area you are interested in.

You may, for example, live in an area where groundwater arsenic is expected. Or where a Superfund toxic site is still a problem. Or you may live in an agricultural watershed where nitrate from fertilizer is a problem.

 

You may also need to distinguish

between water leaving the system’s

treatment plant and water

arriving at the user’s tap.

 

You may also need to distinguish between water leaving the system’s treatment plant and water arriving at the user’s tap.

Lead in drinking water may come from lead service lines leading from the street main into a user’s house. Bacteria may come from a biofilm coating the inside of distribution pipes. This is why some systems allow small amounts of residual chlorine in the water they deliver (making it taste poorly).

As always with data stories, groundtruth everything you can. Talk to water users and system operators instead of relying merely on data. Go to utility board meetings. Taste the water. Visit the source.

[Editor’s Note: For more on determining drinking water quality, see a Toolbox on a useful data portal. Get insight on pollutants in drinking water with a Toolbox on lead pipe data, a TipSheet on mapping out local PFAS risk and an investigative report into PFAS contamination. Plus, read about recent policy debates on fluoride policy, as well as cyber risks to the water supply. And get an international perspective on unsafe drinking water with this Inside Story from Mexico.]

Joseph A. Davis is a freelance writer/editor in Washington, D.C. who has been writing about the environment since 1976. He writes SEJournal Online's TipSheet, Reporter's Toolbox and Issue Backgrounder, and curates SEJ's weekday news headlines service EJToday and @EJTodayNews. Davis also directs SEJ's Freedom of Information Project and writes the WatchDog opinion column.

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* From the weekly news magazine SEJournal Online, Vol. 10, No. 37. Content from each new issue of SEJournal Online is available to the public via the SEJournal Online main page. Subscribe to the e-newsletter here. And see past issues of the SEJournal archived here.