Located in the rapidly urbanizing Research Triangle Park area of North Carolina, a consensus grew in the 1980s on the need for monitoring the quality of water supply sources. As different local governments began monitoring on their own, they soon asked themselves, "Couldn't we do more and save money by working together?"

The local governments built upon and supplemented monitoring requirements in the Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act so they could detect a wider range of synthetic organic chemicals, track long-term trends, and proactively address emerging issues.