As Safe Drinking Water Act turns 40, Madison ramps up testing

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), the landmark law that law set uniform public health standards for drinking water in every state. Before the SDWA was signed into law on December 16, 1974, Madison Water Utility had no water quality department and generally relied on the city lab for basic testing of Madison’s drinking water. Today, our water quality department oversees more than 10,000 safety tests a year.

Under the SDWA, the EPA requires Madison Water Utility to test for about 90 separate chemicals and contaminants, but the utility regularly tests for more, spending $100,000 to $200,000 a year testing every well in the city for substances like solvents, pesticides, fertilizers, minerals, and metals. Results of those tests are published in the utility’s Annual Drinking Water Quality Report, another requirement of the SDWA meant to foster consumer knowledge and confidence in public drinking water systems.

Every few years, the EPA adds more contaminants to its required list. In 2015, Madison Water Utility will spend an additional $30,000 testing the city’s water for 25 contaminants that are not currently regulated by the SDWA to help the EPA determine which substances should be added next.

Although technology to remove pollutants from drinking water is always improving, recent high-profile contamination scares show that the SDWA and other laws like it are more important than ever. In 2014, a toxic algae bloom left a half million people in Toledo without water, a spike in farm runoff continues to contaminate source water in Des Moines with high levels of nitrates, and a massive chemical spill upstream from a water treatment facility in West Virginia went unreported for 12 days and left 300,000 people scrambling to get safe water. It’s perhaps because of environmental laws like the SDWA that water contamination incidents now seem so shocking, but they're also proof that keeping our water safe will always take vigilance.

You can find out more about how the SDWA has impacted Madison's drinking water on our Inside MWU web page.

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