Tuesday, April 21, 2020
The Rules
States are allowed to set and enforce their own drinking water standards as long as they are at minimum as stringent as EPA's national standards. The EPA limits the amount of contaminants that are in water, the limits reflect the affect that the contaminants have on human health. There are also unregulated contaminants, these are contaminants that are suspected to be present in drinking water but do not have health based standards set under the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Safe Drinking Water Act
The Safe Drinking Water Act was passed in 1974 to ensure that the nation had access to clean drinking water. The Environmental Protection Agency regulates and enforces The Safe Drinking Water Act. Water standards were made to protect us from drinking water that has been contaminated with both natural and man made chemicals. Contaminated water can pose a health risk and leave people without an essential resource, water. The safe drinking water act only applies to the public drinking water supply not water bottles. Water bottles are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Our drinking water can come from surface water, water that comes from streams, rivers, lakes, or reservoirs, or ground water, which comes from underground pumped from wells that were drilled into to retrieve water. If distribution centers are not up to standard on how they handle their chemicals or how the water is retrieved it is then a threat to our health and a violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act. Although there are guidelines, if anyone were to want their water tested it could cost from 15 to hundreds of dollars.
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