December 20, 2016

 

Dear ORWA Members and friends,

 

The USA Today very recently released an article that is critical of small and rural water systems. In our opinion, the article has many misleading or incorrect statements.

 

Here are two statements that the article touts:
 

"4 million Americans could be drinking toxic water and would never know"

 "Broken system traps rural Americans with poisoned or untested water"

While the USA Today article focuses on lead compliance for an example, it tries to build a case that training, professionalism, enforcement, and justice are all lacking for small systems in comparison to larger utilities.

 

We at ORWA are very proud of the work we do. These stories are trending on social media right now, and this communication to you serves as our response and assurance that we do not take this criticism lightly.

 

Here is a link to the USA Today article: Click Here

 

To keep you fully informed, below you will find several responses from our NRWA representative in DC.

 

Again, we reiterate that all of us at ORWA strive for quality. We want to assure you that our circuit riders and waste water technicians do an outstanding job assisting small systems and operators.

 

Sincerely,

 

Dustin Parker,

President ORWA Board of Trustees

 

Kevin Strang,

ORWA Executive Director

 

 

Responses 12/14/2016

Mike Keegan, NRWA Analyst ([email protected])

 

USA Today's (12/13/2016) drinking water feature, "Broken System Traps Rural Americans with Poisoned or Untested Water," does report some troubling examples of public drinking water supply problems. However, the reporters use flawed reasoning and false premises in their interpretation of federal compliance data to confuse the public on the safety of their drinking water and who is actually keeping the public's water safe.

In drawing any conclusions from the report, the public should know the following:

• The public is the guarantor of the safety of their public drinking water through their local governments.  The public owns and operates their public drinking water supply and is responsible for its safety.  There is no commercial enterprise (profiting) in public drinking water service and any community can adopt any policy or action needed to protect their drinking.  Every community wants to provide safe water and meet all drinking water standards.       After all, local water supplies are operated and governed by people whose families drink the water every day and people who are locally elected by their community. Some of the smallest communities rely on volunteers to operate their local drinking water supplies.  Every day, someone who works for your local community is making second-to-second decisions about adding essential purifying chemicals, killing pathogens, watching for changes in complex water delivery systems, and keeping your family's drinking water safe because that is what they want to do, not because a regulation makes them do it.
  
  
• The public drinking water supply in rural and small town America is actually very safe. Concerned public citizens should find out exactly what was the cause of any violation in their community in order to judge this for themselves.  Federal non-compliance, while regrettable, does not indicate that there is lead in the public's drinking water supply.  The vast majority of violations are for procedural requirements under the rule such as proper monitoring techniques (which are very complicated and require local residents to properly follow complicated procedures), missed monitoring samples, late submission of samples, lab errors, etc.  Monitoring violations do not correspond to a finding of lead in the drinking water.  The monitoring procedures need to be followed correctly.  However, the public should not conclude this is an indication of contamination and they should know that a very well-governed drinking water supply with impeccable drinking water quality can find itself in violation of these procedures due to their complexity. 
• An exceedance of the 15 parts per billion of lead action level in any one tap sample is not an indication of the level of lead in the public's drinking water.  The higher tested lead levels can often be directly caused by the particular home's plumbing where the water was sampled (a high test can result from a specific faucet design).  Also, the tested level may only be a temporary result which can fluctuate greatly throughout the day and from faucet to faucet. The federal testing protocol is not designed to detect the level of lead in the public's water; it is designed to assess the efficacy of the treatment that is making the water non-corrosive.
• Small and rural community water utility personnel have to comply with federal operator certification requirements equally as stringently as large cities (differences in levels of certification are primarily based on treatment techniques).       If there are discrete examples of regulators that have chosen to "give up" on enforcement on certain small communities, there are certainly examples of primacy agencies that have done the same for large cities, and further examples of regulators who have chosen to enforce regulations beyond what is reasonable in large and small communities.  Isolated cases are not indicative of the national drinking water system that delivers some of the safest water anywhere in the world.
• More regulation is not the answer to ensure the safety of drinking water supply in rural American communities.  Some violations are found in communities with economically disadvantaged populations and where they are acting in good faith to provide public drinking water and comply with the federal rules.  Nobody thinks it would be good public health policy to fine these citizens as a penalty for lacking technical and financial capability.  This is why regulators often fail to enforce the rules with fines (they know help and education are the solution and a fine would only harm a struggling community).  The current federal regulatory construct for drinking water safety is not the appropriate policy for a problem that results from lack of resources and not malfeasance.  Decisions need to be made by the people who are drinking the water and paying for its treatment and delivery, and they need to accept the responsibility.  If local citizens won't take responsibility for protecting themselves, you will get more confusion, lack of accountability, and an ever-increasing bureaucracy.
• The City of Flint drinking water crisis and the examples highlighted by USA Today should serve as a wake-up call for the public to support and participate in their local government and accept responsibility for its operation.  
• The small community paradox in federal water policy is that while we supply water to a minority of the country's population, small and rural communities often have more difficulty providing safe, affordable drinking water and sanitation due to limited economies of scale and lack of technical expertise. Also, while we have fewer resources, we are regulated in the exact same manner as a large community and our water service is often a much higher cost per household. In 2016, there are rural communities in the country that still do not have access to safe drinking water or sanitation due to the lack of population density or funding.  More regulation will not bring drinking water to these communities.