When Tap Water Fails: New Data Exposes America’s Unequal Drinking Water Crisis

A national analysis shows that both public and private water systems are failing many Americans.

Water violations and access issues cluster in certain regions, often hitting low-income and minority communities hardest.

America’s Hidden Water Crisis

About two million people in the United States still live without running water or indoor plumbing. Another 30 million rely on drinking water systems that fail to meet federal safety standards.

One proposed solution is water privatization – transferring the ownership or management of public water systems to private companies. Supporters argue it could improve access to clean, safe water. Critics, however, warn that private companies may prioritize profits over public health.

To better understand how ownership affects water quality and access, researchers conducted a nationwide study. They mapped water system ownership, violations of water safety regulations, and patterns of water-related inequality – what the study calls “water injustice.”

A First-of-Its-Kind National Study

The study, published today (April 15) in Risk Analysis, is the first to combine national data on water violations, social vulnerability, and public perceptions of water access, while comparing public and private systems.

“Policymakers can use our findings to identify and prioritize enforcement efforts in hotspots, make improvements in infrastructure, and implement policies that ensure affordable and safe drinking water – particularly for socially vulnerable communities,” says lead author Alex Segrè Cohen, assistant professor of science and risk communication at the University of Oregon. “We found that violations and risks of water injustice tend to cluster in specific areas or hotspots across the country.”

Here are some of the key findings:

• The top 10 counties with the highest ranking for water violations were in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Oklahoma.
• The highest number of violations reported by a single water system was a public system owned by a local government in Wyoming county, West Virginia.
• The top 10 counties with the highest ranking for water injustice were in Mississippi (8 out of the 10), South Dakota, and Texas.
• Hotspots of water injustice were more often located in areas with lower private system ownership. (This suggests that public water systems are not necessarily better at preventing violations, according to the authors).
• Living in a county with both high water injustice and a higher proportion of privatized water systems was associated with a greater concern or perception of vulnerability around water access and security – with concerns about water accessibility, safety, and reliability.

Defining the Problem: Violations and Injustice

Water system violations include failures to comply with regulations under the Safe Drinking Water Act, including health-based violations such as exceeding maximum levels of contaminants, non-compliance with mandated water treatment techniques, and failure to follow monitoring schedules and communicate required information to customers.

The researchers define water injustice as the unequal access to safe and clean drinking water that disproportionately impacts low-income households and people of color.

Measuring Water Inequality

They devised a county-level score based on the performance of local drinking water systems (based on data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS) and community social vulnerability (using the U.S. Center for Disease Control’s (CDC’s) Environmental Justice Index). These data were merged with a nationally representative survey of U.S. residents (collected in 2019) that measured how people rated their access to drinking water and the quality and reliability of water systems in their area, among other water injustice indicators.

“Our results suggest that privatization alone is not a solution,” says Segrè Cohen. “The local context, such as regulatory enforcement, community vulnerability, and community priorities, matters in determining outcomes.”

Reference: “Mapping risks of water injustice and perceptions of privatized drinking water in the United States: A mixed methods approach” by Alex Segrè Cohen, Catherine E. Slavik, Sami Kurani and Joseph Árvai, 15 April 2025, Risk Analysis.
DOI: 10.1111/risa.70012

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