Safe Drinking Water Act

The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) is the principal federal law in the United States intended to ensure safe drinking water for the public. Pursuant to the act, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is required to set standards for drinking water quality and oversee all states, localities, and water suppliers who implement these standards.

SDWA applies to every public water system in the United States. There are currently more than 150,000 public water systems providing water to almost all Americans at some time in their lives. These water systems must be analyzed by third-party analytical laboratories. The Act does not cover private wells.

The SDWA does not apply to bottled water. Bottled water is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

Read more about Safe Drinking Water Act:  National Primary Drinking Water Regulations, Proposed Amendments, See Also

Famous quotes containing the words safe, drinking, water and/or act:

    Dear, be the tree your sleep awaits;
    Worms be your words, you not safe from ours.
    John Ashbery (b. 1927)

    A little learning is a dang’rous thing;
    Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
    There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
    And drinking largely sobers us again.
    Alexander Pope (1688–1744)

    We have to learn how to come out of unclean situations cleaner than we were, and even how to wash ourselves with dirty water when we need to.
    Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

    In the deeper layers of the modern consciousness ... every attempt to succeed is an act of aggression, leaving one alone and guilty and defenseless among enemies: one is punished for success. This is our intolerable dilemma: that failure is a kind of death and success is evil and dangerous, is—ultimately—impossible.
    Robert Warshow (1917–1955)