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DEVELOPMENT OF WATER SUPPLY TECHNOLOGY TO MEET THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE SAFE DRINKING WATER ACT OF 1996: TRENDS AND PROSPECTS.
Citation:
DEVELOPMENT OF WATER SUPPLY TECHNOLOGY TO MEET THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE SAFE DRINKING WATER ACT OF 1996: TRENDS AND PROSPECTS. Presented at 5th Int Symposium on Water Supply Technology, Kobe, Japan, 11/15-17/00.
Description:
The passage of the U.S. Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) in 1974 has had a major impact on the way water is treated and delivered in the U.S. The Act established national drinking water regulations for more than 170,000 public drinking water systems serving over 250 million people in the U.S. Under the SDWA public water systems are defined as consisting of both community and non-community water systems. There are approximately 54,000 community water systems which provide drinking water to the same people year-round. Non-community systems serve customers on less than a year round basis. Since 1980, on a percentage bsis, there are fewer very small water systems (serving less than 25-500 people) and slightly more small, medium, and large water systems. Approximately 20% of the community systems in the U.S. use surface water and 82% use ground water.
Passage of the SDWA has resulted in a number of changes in drinking water technology. Increasingly comprehensive and stringent regulations have increased the general level of sophistication in drinking water technology. Over the next 25 years in addition to continuing advances in treatment technology we can expect increasing interest in the application of concepts from pollution prevention to water resources, real time management of water quality in drinking water distribution systems, advances in health science for identifying sensitive sub-populations, water conservation and reuse. We will face many challenges over the next 25 years.