National Enforcement and Compliance Initiative: Increasing Compliance with Drinking Water Standards

Under the Increasing Compliance with Drinking Water Standards National Enforcement and Compliance Initiative (NECI), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) works with states, Tribes, and territories to improve Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) compliance at Community Water Systems (CWSs) across the country. In the United States, about 90 percent of the population receives drinking water from approximately 50,000 regulated public water systems that provide water year-round, referred to as CWSs. SDWA violations at CWSs expose millions of people to health risks each year. For example, in Fiscal Year (FY) 2022, over 18,000 CWSs had a least one SDWA violation, and almost 3,000 CWSs had a health-based violation, resulting in approximately 22 million Americans consuming water with at least one health-based violation of drinking water standards. 

Goals

Ensure clean and safe drinking water by improving compliance at CWSs regulated under the SDWA. As this NECI continues, EPA will increase its field presence, take effective enforcement to reduce noncompliance, prevent violations by improving resiliency, and offer more compliance assistance to prevent and address public health risks.

Develop a sustainable drinking water enforcement and compliance assurance program to support accountability for primacy agencies.*

* Primacy agencies are state, Tribal, or territory agencies with primary authority to enforce drinking water regulations. EPA will support accountability for inspections and enforcement by primacy agencies by developing and enhancing EPA and primacy agency inspector skills, expertise, and capacity to monitor and enforce the SDWA.

FY 2025 Results

In FY 2025, EPA used inspections, enforcement, and technical assistance to improve drinking water at CWSs across the country. EPA reduced the number of CWSs in longstanding noncompliance by addressing 25% of the systems identified as “top violators”—drinking water systems that have difficulty resolving their compliance issues or that have a formal enforcement action concerning long-unresolved health-based violations. Through technical assistance, and further enforcement, EPA has addressed 49% of the top violators between October 2020 to September 2025.

Lead and Copper Rule

Protecting Americans from lead in drinking water is a longstanding priority of EPA. Under the 2021 Lead and Copper Rule (LCR) Revisions, public water systems must submit detailed service line inventories, educate the public on potential lead exposure, and swiftly report any exceedances of lead action levels. In FY 2025, EPA worked with state, Tribal, and territorial partners to provide compliance assistance to CWSs in violation of the LCR or the initial service line inventory compliance deadline. EPA also issued enforcement orders to CWSs to address system noncompliance with the initial service line inventory requirement.

Cybersecurity and Emergency Response Planning

SDWA requires CWSs serving greater than 3,300 people to evaluate potential risks to their system, such as natural hazards and malevolent acts including cybersecurity attacks, and to develop plans to mitigate those risks. EPA continues to evaluate system cybersecurity practices and emergency preparedness through compliance monitoring activities. Where appropriate, including when EPA identifies concerns during inspections, EPA offers CWSs support on enhancing system resiliency to cyber threats through EPA’s Technical Assistance Program for the Water Sector.  In FY 2025, EPA also made $9 million available through the Midsize and Large Drinking Water System Infrastructure Resilience and Sustainability Program to help systems protect drinking water from natural hazards, extreme weather events, and cybersecurity threats.  

Compliance Monitoring Activities

In FY 2025, EPA conducted a total of 580 compliance monitoring activities at CWSs in coordination with primacy agencies. In addition, 179 compliance monitoring activities included an evaluation of the system’s compliance with SDWA section 1433 risk evaluation and emergency response planning, including cybersecurity requirements.

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Enforcement Cases

  In FY 2025, EPA completed 419 SDWA enforcement actions.

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Improved System Performance with Compliance Advisors

In FY 2020, EPA launched the Compliance Advisors for Sustainable Water Systems program to provide customized, multidisciplinary technical assistance to help CWSs achieve and sustain environmental compliance. In FY 2025, EPA assisted 125 drinking water systems through this program, including 17 Tribal systems, and has assisted 336 systems since the program began.

Inspector Capacity and Technical Expertise

To increase inspector capacity and technical expertise, EPA provides multiple training programs. In FY 2025, EPA hosted the following training:

Public Water System Supervision Inspector Fundamentals Training provided to support credentialing of EPA and primacy program inspectors, with over 200 participants from EPA and 10 states completing the four-day training;
Focused-topic trainings held on the Arsenic Rule, Disinfection By-Products Rules, Lead and Copper Rule, Surface Water Treatment Rule, SDWA statutory requirements, and policy and regulatory updates;
On-the-job inspector training provided at 32 CWSs for over 90 EPA and primacy program staff; and
Inspection video programs to introduce inspectors-in-training and newly credentialed inspectors to EPA CWS inspection procedures and technologies and practices that inspectors will encounter during CWS inspections.