What is the Partnership for Safe Water?
CLWA is a member agency of the Partnership for Safe Water (Partnership), a voluntary cooperative effort between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), American Water Works Association (AWWA) and other drinking water organizations. As of October 1999, it also included more than 200 surface water utilities throughout the U.S. The goal of this common sense cooperation is to provide a new measure of safety to millions of Americans by implementing prevention programs where legislation or regulation does not exist. The preventative measures are based around optimizing treatment plant performance and thus increasing protection against microbial contamination in America’s drinking water supply.
The Partnership’s program includes:
- A commitment to continued compliance with the existing Surface Water Treatment Rule. Baseline data collection and analysis of existing plant turbidity data.
- Continuing annual submittal and analysis of turbidity data.
- Self-assessment – including a detailed self-analysis of data with subsequent self-resolution of a series of open-ended questions about the utility’s engineering, operations, maintenance and administration. These questions are designed to allow the utility to identify performance limiting factors within its organization. This self-analysis will be reviewed by a committee of knowledgeable peers. The committee’s feedback will offer suggestions to the utility to promote additional improvement.
Why It Was Formed
In 1994, the EPA released a report entitled “Strengthening the Safety of Our Drinking Water.” This report detailed violations of drinking water standards, including monitoring violations, where microbiological and chemical standards were exceeded. The report showed that some 30 million people – about 12 percent of America’s population – were served by drinking water systems that violated one or more public health standards during one or more reporting periods. In addition to these eye opening findings, the 1993 cryptosporidiosis outbreak in Milwaukee and subsequent “boil water” alerts in Washington D.C. and New York City have further emphasized the need for additional safer drinking water standards.
Immediate concern for safety, and the overall realization that appropriate legislation might take years to implement, led to the innovative cooperative effort called the Partnership for Safe Water. The Partnership brings regulators and drinking water suppliers together in synergistic advancement rather than adversarial negotiation.
Which Drinking Water Organizations support the Partnership?
The Partnership for Safe Water is comprised of six drinking water organizations at the national level. These organizations include:
- EPA – (Environmental Protection Agency)
- AMWA – (Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies)
- AWWA – (American Water Works Association)
- NAWC – (National Association of Water Companies)
- ASDWA – (Association of State Drinking Water Administrators)
- AWWARF – (American Water Works Association Research Foundation)
In addition, as of October 1999 over 200 surface water utilities have provided baseline data for water treatment facilities throughout the United States. The Partnership serves to benefit more than 90 million people throughout the United States.
Text © 2000 American Water Works Association.
