Providing Safe Drinking Water in America: National Public Water Systems Compliance Report

On this page:

Public Water System Violations Reported by Primacy Agencies
Snapshot Summary and Evaluation of PWS Compliance
State/Territory/Navajo Nation Annual Public Water System Compliance Reports
Recommendations to Improve Compliance and Address the Findings in the National PWS Compliance Report
Enforcement and Compliance and Financial Assistance Activities in Indian Country
Previous National PWSs Compliance Reports and Annual State Reports

Each year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency analyzes and reports on drinking water violations at public water systems, or PWSs, in the United States. Section 1414(c)(3)(B) of the Safe Drinking Water Act, or SDWA, requires EPA to publicize an annual report to include the following:

Summarize and evaluate violations of National Primary Drinking Water Regulations, or NPDWR, by PWSs reported by states, federally recognized Indian Tribes, commonwealths, and territories.
Include information about EPA's enforcement and compliance assistance activities at PWSs serving Indian country, and financial assistance provided to Tribes, including Alaska Native Villages.
Make recommendations concerning the resources needed for improving compliance.

EPA’s 2023 report provides the public, drinking water regulators, and environmental professionals information about ongoing and planned SDWA compliance assistance and enforcement activities for PWSs.

Public Water System Violations Reported by Primacy Agencies

EPA’s Enforcement and Compliance History Online, or ECHO, Drinking Water Dashboard provides publicly available information on PWS activities and violations reported by primacy agencies – either states, Tribes, commonwealths, and territories with EPA approval to implement the SDWA Public Water System Supervision Program. It also provides available information on PWS activities and violations in areas where EPA directly implements the SDWA Public Water System Supervision Program (i.e., Wyoming, the District of Columbia, and all Indian country, except the Navajo Nation which maintains primacy for almost all PWSs on the Navajo Reservation).

The ECHO Dashboard provides users several different ways to view and summarize the data. Users can access national statistics on violations overall, individual types of violations, and enforcement responses reported by primacy agencies. Each Dashboard panel can be filtered to present the annual compliance data at the national level and for systems in Indian country, or more finely sorted to display data by EPA Region, state, Tribe, commonwealth, and territory. Note: when accessing data on the Drinking Water Dashboard, users should ensure that the “Year View” has the “Calendar Year” option selected using the drop-down menu. First-time users of the interactive annual National PWS Compliance Dashboard Report may find the ECHO Quick Start Guide instructions helpful.

Snapshot Summary and Evaluation of PWS Compliance in Calendar Year 2023

During calendar year 2023, the number of active PWSs in the U.S. was 148,541.
Seventy-two percent (107,559) of the PWSs active in that year had no reported violations of drinking water standards.
Nearly twenty-eight percent (40,982) were reported to have violated at least one drinking water standard in 2023.
Four percent (6,045) of the PWSs in the U.S. were reported to have violated a health-based drinking water standard (a contaminant was detected in excess of allowable limits or drinking water treatment technique requirements were not met) in 2023.
Twenty percent (29,703) of PWSs failed to meet at least one monitoring or reporting requirement, with the result that information about what contaminants were present in their drinking water was late, incomplete, or not reported at all.
EPA prioritizes SDWA enforcement responses using a methodology that assigns points to violation types (e.g. health-based, monitoring, or reporting) based on the seriousness and duration of the violation. The violation points for each PWS are added together to produce a total score. A PWS with a score of 11 or higher is designated an enforcement priority until its violations are either returned to compliance or addressed with a formal enforcement action. In 2023, 5,018 (3.4%) PWSs were an enforcement priority in at least one quarter of the year. Systems typically become enforcement priorities after multiple violations over a sustained period. The majority (4,667 or 93%) of PWSs in enforcement priority status were small systems serving a population of 3,300 or less.
In 2023, EPA and other primacy agencies initiated at least one formal enforcement action at 2,398 PWSs and at least one informal enforcement action at 27,149 PWSs in response to the reported drinking water violations at 40,982 of PWSs within their jurisdictions.
In 2023, 24,819 PWSs corrected their violations and were reported as returned to compliance.
The 2023 report data may differ somewhat from 2023 state reports that draw from the Safe Drinking Water Information System-Federal, depending on the specific queries used to generate each annual report.

Previous National PWS Annual Compliance Reports, past snapshots, and links to state reports

State/Territory/Navajo Nation Annual Public Water System Compliance Reports for 2023

Section 1414(c)(3)(A) of SDWA requires that each primacy agency, shall prepare, make readily available to the public, and submit to the EPA Administrator an annual report of violations of NPDWRs by PWSs in the primacy agency’s jurisdiction. Currently, 49 states, 5 territories, and the Navajo Nation have primacy, and EPA has direct implementation authority for the District of Columbia, Wyoming, and the rest of Indian country. These Annual State Public Water System Compliance reports are to include violations of maximum contaminant levels, treatment requirements, variances and exemptions, and monitoring requirements. Individual compliance reports are available on the State annual PWS compliance reports for Calendar Year 2023 webpage.

Recommendations to Improve Compliance and Address the Findings in the National PWS Compliance Report

After reviewing the primacy agencies’ annual PWS compliance reports for calendar year 2023, EPA provides three categories of recommendations to improve the ability of PWSs to meet the federal SDWA drinking water requirements. These recommendations will be considered in the context of EPA’s Increasing Compliance with Drinking Water Standards National Enforcement and Compliance Initiative and incorporated into EPA Regions’ plans to implement the initiative, where practicable. The Drinking Water NECI joins EPA and primacy agencies in partnership to use our resources most effectively to identify, reduce, and prevent noncompliance at Community Water Systems, or CWSs, that serve water to at least 15 service connections used by year-round residents or regularly serve at least 25 year-round residents.

1. Continue to Return Systems to Compliance and Prevent Noncompliance

States, territories, the Navajo Nation, and EPA will continue working together to return violating PWSs to compliance as efficiently and effectively as possible. Pursuing a holistic approach to addressing noncompliance by all primacy agencies is an important element of improving performance among PWSs, including:

Reducing Health-Based Violations: Take appropriate action to reduce the number of PWSs in violation of health-based standards under the SDWA, with emphasis on CWSs.
Reducing Violation Duration: Shorten the average duration of health-based violations that occur at CWSs.
Improving Reporting: Improve the overall accuracy of data in EPA’s drinking water databases and other information related to SDWA compliance by taking proactive measures to report.
Preventing Noncompliance: Identify and take proactive measures, such as providing technical assistance, to prevent noncompliance at CWSs that face significant capacity issues or display other indications that they are likely to violate NPDWRs. Ensure appropriate intervention (including enforcement) to resolve violations and prevent future noncompliance.
Improving system understanding of NPDWRs: Coordinate with primacy agencies to provide targeted training, technical assistance, and implementation tools to PWS operators to better understand and implement the NPDWRs requirements.

Primacy agencies and EPA will continue to pursue enforcement actions against violating PWSs both to return systems to compliance and to deter future violations. EPA and primacy agencies will continue to implement EPA’s SDWA Enforcement Response Policy.

EPA remains committed to working with primacy agencies to protect public health and is pursuing collaborative approaches for preventing and correcting violations of drinking water standards as the Agency implements the Drinking Water NECI to increase compliance with drinking water standards.

2. Continue to Develop Capacity at Smaller Public Water Systems

EPA will continue its efforts to support PWSs serving 10,000 or fewer consumers through the capacity development program and other sustainability efforts. Recognizing the challenges facing these PWSs, EPA provides tools and assistance to develop the technical, financial, and managerial capacity to provide safe drinking water. EPA’s Office of Water also provides information about treatment technology options for small systems. New authorities under the America’s Water and Infrastructure Act of 2018, also provides additional resources for small drinking water systems. Information about the new authorities can be found on EPA’s America’s Water Infrastructure Act of 2018 (AWIA) webpage.

Additional information on EPA’s capacity development efforts can be found at Building the Capacity of Drinking Water Systems. This information includes numerous assistance resources and activities provided by EPA, including those through the Office of Water and regional water divisions, such as on-site visits and the distribution of easy-to-read guides and checklists. EPA also offers Water Technical Assistance (WaterTA) that connects communities to experts who help assess and implement solutions for their drinking water, sewage, and stormwater needs and assists communities with applying for Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, State Revolving Fund, and other available financial assistance. Over 5,000 communities have been helped through water technical assistance since fiscal year 2023. The Compliance Advisors for Sustainable Water Systems Program also provides on-the-ground technical assistance to help PWSs achieve and sustain environmental compliance. Compliance Advisors provided technical assistance to 119 small drinking water systems in 2023.

The Financing for Environmental Compliance website provides financial and technical assistance resources to help communities create a plan to finance environmental capital assets. For more information on sustainable practices that support water infrastructure and create sustainable communities, see EPA’s Sustainable Water Infrastructure web page.

3. Improve Data Quality and Transparency

Data completeness and accuracy must remain a high priority for EPA and primacy agencies. Without high quality data, EPA cannot fulfill its responsibility to fully assess the state of compliance of the Nation’s PWSs and to communicate to the public, Congress, and other stakeholders. The Consumer Confidence Report and Public Notification Rules are tools to inform water system consumers and the public of their drinking water quality.

EPA’s Drinking Water Dashboard annually summarizes violation and enforcement data for PWSs which also increases the public’s access to information about PWS compliance. EPA believes that raising the public’s awareness of the violations at PWSs will encourage PWSs to improve their compliance. The dashboard format allows users easier access to additional data through hyperlinks and gives users the ability to filter and download the data.  

Enforcement and Compliance and Financial Assistance Activities in Indian Country

EPA works with Tribal governments and/or Tribal government utilities to help their PWSs comply with SDWA requirements and improve access to safe drinking water. EPA can authorize Tribes to implement the SDWA Public Water System Supervision Program (known as “primacy”) and enforce national standards within their boundaries. To date, only the Navajo Nation has applied for and received primacy. EPA, therefore, directly implements the SDWA requirements for almost all PWSs in Indian country and devotes considerable resources to improving PWSs compliance in Indian country. In accordance with SDWA Section 1414(c)(3)(B), EPA’s National PWSs Compliance Report includes information on enforcement and compliance assistance activities in Indian country and financial assistance provided to improve compliance.

Violations and Enforcement Actions in Indian Country

Information on PWSs in Indian country with reported violations during the calendar year can be found on EPA’s Drinking Water Dashboard, by selecting the specific Tribe under the drop-down menu for “Tribes.” The drop-down menu can also be used to select all Tribal PWSs by clicking the three dots and then clicking “Select all.”

EPA Financial Assistance for PWSs in Indian Country

EPA provides financial assistance to Tribes for planning and construction expenditures at community or non-profit non-community PWSs that serve Tribes through various funding programs. Information on EPA’s financial assistance to Tribal PWSs is available on EPA’s Tribal Drinking Water Funding Programs webpage.

Through the Tribal Public Water System Supervision Program, funds are available to support the Navajo Nation’s (as a primacy agency) SDWA Public Water System Supervision Program, assist Tribes developing primacy programs and individual program components, and support EPA’s implementation of primacy (direct implementation) activities in Indian country. These funds are used for activities such as:

Providing technical assistance to owners and operators of water systems.
Maintaining compliance data systems.
Compiling and analyzing compliance information.
Responding to violations.
Conducting sanitary surveys.

Each year, two percent of the appropriation for the national Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, or DWSRF, program is set aside for American Indian communities and Alaska Native Villages through the Drinking Water Infrastructure Grants Tribal Set-Aside Program. These funds may be used for various projects, including the following:

Distribution and transmission system improvements.
Community water system extensions.
Storage facilities.
Treatment improvements.
Construction of new pump houses.

In 2023, Tribes were allotted a portion of DWSRF funds appropriated under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, including general supplemental funds, funds specifically for identifying and addressing PFAS and emerging contaminants, as well as funds specifically to support lead service line inventories and replacement activities.

Additionally, EPA makes a portion of appropriated funds available to Tribes under the following grant programs: the Small, Underserved and Disadvantaged Communities Tribal Grant Program, the Reducing Lead in Drinking Water Tribal Grant Program, and the Emerging Contaminants in Small or Disadvantaged Communities (EC-SDC) Tribal Grant Program.

Accessing infrastructure funding can be a challenge to many communities, especially for Tribes. Many of the Water Technical Assistance (WaterTA) initiatives that EPA offers provide free assistance to Tribes to connect to experts who help assess and implement solutions for their drinking water, sewage, and stormwater needs.

Previous National PWS Report

EPA’s annual reports on PWS violation data are summarized on the Drinking Water Dashboard. Below is an archive of previous National PWS Annual Compliance Reports, including prior recommendations for improving compliance, discussions on EPA’s prior enforcement, compliance assistance, and financial assistance efforts in Indian country: