(Reuters Health) – Drinking water violations may be more common in U.S. counties with greater numbers of minorities, low-income families, and uninsured households, a new report suggests.
More efforts are needed to ensure everyone in the U.S. has access to safe drinking water, the authors say.
“The Flint Water Crisis demonstrated that while the United States has one of the safest drinking water supplies in the world, there are problems.
McDonald is with the Peabody College at Vanderbilt University in Nashville and Jones is with the University of Missouri in Columbia.
They also analyzed demographic data from the American Community Survey.
McDonald and Jones say they excluded Indian reservations and U.S. territories because in those communities, the historical injustices that have contributed to water quality, access, and administrative challenges are outside the scope of this study.
The violations were especially problematic in water systems that serve large populations (i.e., 50,000 people or more), McDonald and Jones reported in the American Journal of Public Health.
We should be proactive versus reactive.
On its website, the EPA explains, "The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) is the federal law that protects public drinking water supplies throughout the nation.
(bit.ly/2IcOe0R) “We need to think globally, act locally about drinking water supplies,” McDonald and Jones said.