Safe Drinking Water Information System: Public Water System Violations

1993 to present data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on public water systems and their compliance with federal drinking water regulations. The dataset tracks violations across the United States, providing a national view of water safety enforcement. It is maintained by the EPA and was last updated in March 2024.

Use Cases

• Analyzing trends in water quality violations over time using reported violation dates.
• Mapping compliance status of public water systems across different states and counties.
• Identifying common types of violations (e.g., Maximum Contaminant Level exceedances) for targeted enforcement.
• Correlating system characteristics (e.g., population served, water source type) with violation frequency.
• Tracking enforcement actions taken by regulatory agencies in response to reported violations.

Strengths

• Provides long-term national coverage of drinking water safety from 1993 onward.
• Maintained and updated by the authoritative U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
• Available on multiple public data platforms, indicating its established importance for research and oversight.

Limitations

• Specific column names and exact row counts are not provided in the available metadata, limiting detailed assessment.
• Sources conflict on license type, with one listing 'closed' and others 'other-license-specified', creating ambiguity for reuse.

Provenance

Source

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Collection Method

Regulatory reporting and enforcement data collection.

Time Range

1993-present

Freshness

2024-03-16

Geography

United States