Associations between homeowner perceptions of water quality and measures of contamination in private drinking water supplies

Municipal water supply systems in the United States are required to adhere to the 1996 Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), which includes minimum treatment requirements, monitoring regimens, and the reporting of significant breaches in water quality. While the SDWA has succeeded in reducing disease outbreaks nationally, 45 million Americans rely on privately supplied drinking water systems (e.g. wells) which remain unregulated. Monitoring and maintenance of these systems is solely the responsibility of the homeowner. As private systems are often located in underserved rural areas, a lack of awareness of water supply management may lead to system neglect and the absence of regular water testing. Perhaps not surprisingly, a recent CDC report states that the proportion of waterborne outbreaks associated with privately supplied household drinking systems has increased over the past three decades and is of concern.

Previous studies indicate that, even among those well-educated in environmental health, homeowners generally forego water quality testing or technical assistance unless they perceive a water quality problem at the point of use. Unfortunately, though many nuisance contaminants (e.g. sediment) are related to obvious aesthetic issues (e.g. turbidity, discoloration), common contaminants of health concern (bacteria, nitrate) are generally not directly associated with perceptible changes in quality. This discrepancy may present a serious challenge to environmental health educators, but little field work demonstrating this connection has been reported. This presentation will detail the analysis of a unique historical dataset of almost 15,000 household water samples collected from privately supplied systems via a Virginia Cooperative Extension Program, which includes both water quality results as well as accompanying household questionnaire data detailing system construction, perceived environmental sources of contamination, and perceived water quality, enabling the statistical identification of trends in the prevalence of specific contaminants as well as relationships between water quality and homeowner perception.