By Hannah S. Richerson, Clean Water Program Manager, and Evan Feinauer, Staff Attorney
December 2024 marks the 50th anniversary of the initial enactment of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA)—a pivotal federal law that protects vast amounts of the nation’s drinking water. Despite its current strength, it took an incredible amount of work to pass subsequent strengthening amendments. These protections are under constant threat, perhaps now more than ever.
In the early 1900s, the United States Public Health Service (PHS) began using its authority under the Interstate Quarantine Act to impose drinking water quality standards on water served on buses, trains, and later, airplanes, that were used in interstate transport. At first, the focus was solely on bacterial contamination of water and the spread of disease. Over time, the standards expanded to cover more contaminants, such as lead. But only about 2% of water utilities provided water for these “interstate carriers,” so most individuals were not protected. Some cities and states did adopt the PHS’s standards, but often only as unenforceable recommendations. Put simply, before the SDWA, there were no broadly applicable, enforceable federal drinking water quality standards that water utilities had to meet.
Unsurprisingly, many individuals did not have access to safe drinking water when they opened their taps. In 1970, the PHS released a study showing that nearly half of water utilities examined provided water that did not meet health and safety standards. This exposed the inadequacy of patchwork regulations from state and local government. It also spurred action to authorize the newly created United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set enforceable federal standards, including through the SDWA enacted on December 16, 1974.
Under the SDWA, all water utilities in the United States that provide drinking water to at least 15 service connections or 25 people per day for at least 60 days of the year are regulated. The SDWA initially directed the EPA to promulgate national primary drinking water regulations with enforceable standards for a list of 26 contaminants based on the earlier PHS interstate carrier drinking water quality standards. Subsequent amendments—including substantial revisions in 1986, 1996, and 2018— strengthened the SDWA’s effectiveness in protecting public health.
For example, the Lead and Copper Rule of 1991, as well as amendments in 2021 and 2024, resulted from these efforts. Before 1991, the action level for lead in drinking water was set at 50 parts per billion (ppb), and there were no established standards for copper. To visualize, one ppb is approximately the equivalent of one drop of water in a public swimming pool. With the Rule’s enactment, the action level for lead was reduced to 15 ppb and an action level of 1300 ppb for copper was set. The action level for lead was further lowered to 10 ppb through the 2024 improvements, much closer to the maximum contaminant level goal of 0—the level at which there are no known adverse public health risks. More recently, the EPA targeted emerging per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) contaminants under its SDWA authority. In March of 2021, the EPA made a positive regulatory determination to regulate two PFAS, PFOA and PFOS. The same year, EPA began monitoring 29 additional unregulated PFAS compounds in water utilities. The EPA also finalized a positive regulatory determination for PFHxS, PFNA, and HFPO-DA, individually, and for these substances with PFBS, as a mixture, in April of this year.
These represent only a fraction of the SDWA’s public health achievements. Despite its massive success, the SDWA is often taken for granted. And without continued focus and investment, we are at risk of sliding backward. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law helped fund needed water infrastructure upgrades, for instance, but it is unclear if the new Trump Administration will continue that funding or instead attempt to pull much of it back. These resource constraints will hit small and rural communities the hardest. And, as our knowledge grows, we continue to learn that even smaller amounts of known contaminants can harm our health, and that there are new contaminants that need to be covered by health-based standards. Unfortunately, the incoming administration appears poised to abandon or even reverse efforts to strengthen our drinking water standards for some contaminants, including lead and PFAS. This comes at a time when more, not less, investment and enforcement is needed.
Thus, as the SDWA turns 50, we should celebrate all it has done to provide safe water to so many, but we also need to remember what life was like before its enactment, and that it took a huge number of people caring an awful lot to turn it from an idea into a reality. It is now our turn to make sure the SDWA’s promise of safe drinking water is kept for future generations.
