Safe Drinking Water Act

Purpose

On December 16, 1974, the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) was signed into law. The SDWA gave the federal government, through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the authority to:

• Establish uniform guidelines specifying the acceptable treatment technologies for cleansing drinking water of unsafe levels of pollutants
• Require public water systems to monitor and report their levels of identified contaminants
• Set national standards regulating the levels of contaminants in drinking water

Agencies

The SWDA gave the EPA primary responsibility for developing drinking water regulations and gave state regulatory agencies the opportunity to assume primary responsibility for enforcing those regulations. The agency responsible for enforcement in North Carolina is the Public Water Supply Section under the authority of the North Carolina Division of Water Resources.

Water Quality Reports

An important regulation under the SWDA is for every water utility to publish detailed water quality information annually to its customers. This water quality report is distributed annually every May in your monthly billing statement. We are committed to providing you with this information to both communicate that the water is safe to drink and to inform customers the need for sufficient funds to properly operate and maintain the water supply, treatment, and distribution systems.