Making Waves in Water Management Together
For over two years—since we launched EPIC’s Technology Program—I’ve been a broken record on one crucial data question: How can we tell if our water is or is not safe to drink? It should be an easy question to answer.
Just last week, I helped my Mom move cross-country from Austin, Texas, up to Dover, New Hampshire. As we got parched from unpacking boxes, her first instinct was to run out and buy bottled water when we noticed the water from the faucet smelled “a little funny.” We (meaning I) then proceeded down a rabbit hole of research, only to find out that while the water “legally” met safety standards, it still exceeded recommended contaminant levels on several fronts. I have a masters degree in water resource engineering and I couldn’t easily figure out if there was any real risk in drinking it.
My Mom’s water tap dilemma was only the latest in a long series of glaring examples of why we have to make it easier to know if our water is safe to drink. In 2024, that should be as simple as checking the weather. Anytime, anywhere, anyone should be able to make real time decisions about their family’s health and water quality.
At least I’m not alone in demanding easily accessible information on our drinking water.
Last month, EPIC hosted a convening in Washington, DC, of about 70 drinking water justice champions from across government, non-profits, technology providers, and water associations. The all-day workshop was a blast. (Shout out to the Reservoir Center for Water Solutions for providing the great space; oh how natural light and a view of the water makes all the difference when you’re inside all day!).
This convening was a long time coming given EPIC’s work to date on drinking water equity and service area boundaries—but this was the first in-person event we’ve had solely dedicated to building relationships and learning from the ecosystem of people working on the underlying data that can tell us who gets drinking water from whom. As readers working in this space will know, updated, accurate water data empowers us to answer the crucial next question—which is who then, lacks access to safe drinking water? But as we heard from folks during the workshop, better data also enables a myriad of other key insights about numerous and geographically diverse communities. The upshot is that we can use that more comprehensive—and accurate—data to link discrete populations to the specific challenges they face, including:
Variation in water rates and affordability, including tracking the administration of Low-Income Household Water Assistance Programs;
How population change interacts with water supply;
Mapping drinking water justice and cumulative environmental burdens;
How wildfires, drought, and increased precipitation impact water quality and supply.
We were fortunate to have folks attend from more than 10 offices across the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—from the Offices of Policy, Environmental Justice, the Chief Information Officer, Research and Development, and more—as well as several other agencies like the Indian Health Service, Health and Human Services (HHS), US Geological Survey (USGS), and the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). We were also joined by leading nonprofits, associations, and tech providers working at the intersection of water and data.
Moving toward a truly national drinking water dataset
At the core of our discussions was a specific, admittedly wonky, dataset—one with immensely important implications: the water utility service area boundaries dataset. In short, service area boundaries map where one utility ends and another begins. Boundary data is collected by utilities, but suffers from issues of inconsistencies across states. The rub is that without high-quality service area boundary information, we’re unable to answer those key questions about our drinking water.
The data is vital to so many different use cases—yet no one in the room actually manages a water utility where the data might be initially created. And moving from the specific boundaries of each of the 50,000+ water utilities in the US to a unified national dataset is complex at best. Right now, we have a high-quality understanding of where a little over half of the population gets their water from, and approximations for the rest.
From creating and maintaining the underlying dataset, sharing it among agencies, validating it with community members, and using the data in everyday decision-making about where to swim, play, fish—or how to prioritize investments in drinking water infrastructure—we all have a part to play.
During the workshop, we also held a panel on how other sectors have used data intermediaries to play the critical role of building trust between data providers and users, curating information for specific use cases, and mobilizing resources to maintain quality information. Learn more about how here!
So on this World Water Day, I’ll admit—I’m energized by the chance we have to move this work forward one step at a time, and in community; as well as to keep building collaborations between dedicated, smart advocates and data experts in and around government. And, here’s to hoping for a future where I won’t have to look hard—nothing more than a Google search!—to figure out if my Mom’s water is safe to drink or not. Time to make some waves.
