The United States system of providing clean drinking water to all Americans, long viewed as one of the nation’s (and the world’s) premier environmental achievements, has been springing significant leaks over more than a decade. In its new Drinking Water Action Plan, which the EPA describes as a “national call to action,” the Agency sums up these “challenges” in six priority areas and proposes actions to meet each. While the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) and the Clean Water Act (CWA) provide the federal government with significant powers to protect the sources of drinking water and reduce contamination, the EPA says that it cannot complete the proposed actions alone.
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“All levels of government, utilities, the private sector, and civil society have critical roles to play,” says the EPA. “State and tribal primacy agencies in particular, as the primary implementers of SDWA across most of the country, are central to drinking water safety. Many of the key authorities and tools discussed in this Plan—including source water protection, direct oversight of utility management, and capacity development and infrastructure finance—are exercised primarily by the primacy agencies.”