(The hill) — A new study found that the counties in the United States with the most egregious water quality violations are concentrated in four states: West Virginia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Oklahoma.
Wyoming County, West Virginia, had the most infringements in a single water system, according to a study published Tuesday in the international journal Risk Analysis.
About 2 million people nationwide—equivalent to Nebraska’s entire population—do not have access to running water, and the study authors discovered that this lack of basic drinking water services occurs in clusters.
“This high number is neither equally nor proportionally distributed across the population,” the researchers wrote.
With another 30 million people relying on drinking water systems that do not meet safety standards, the researchers wanted to know which systems are most prone to these deficiencies.
Many experts have suggested that water privatization, or the transfer of public water systems to private ownership or management, could be a solution to making US water cleaner and safer.
However, opponents have argued that such a switch could lead to companies prioritizing profits over public needs.
The researchers decided to look into how private versus public system operations affect water quality and accessibility.
To accomplish this, they mapped the country’s distribution of system ownership, violations, water injustice, and resident perceptions of water access.
Failures to comply with Safe Drinking Water Act regulations, such as exceeding maximum contaminant levels, noncompliance with required water treatment protocols, and the absence of monitoring schedules or customer communication, were among the violations identified in the study.
“Our results suggest that privatization alone is not a solution,” lead author Alex Segrè Cohen, an assistant professor of science and risk communication at the University of Oregon, stated.
“The local context, such as regulatory enforcement, community vulnerability, and community priorities, matters in determining outcomes,” says Segrè Cohen.
According to the study, Mississippi had eight of the top ten counties with water injustice issues, followed by South Dakota and Texas.
Water injustice, according to the researchers, is “the unequal access to safe and clean drinking water that disproportionately impacts low-income households and people of color.” They developed a county-level score based on water system performance and community social vulnerability.
Water injustice hotspots were more frequently found in areas with lower private system ownership and a stronger public system presence, implying that public systems are not always better at preventing violations, the authors concluded.
The data also revealed that living in a county with increased water injustice and a higher proportion of privatized systems was associated with a greater sense of vulnerability in terms of water access and security.
Going forward, the authors hoped that lawmakers and regulators would be able to use the research to inform their water management strategies and narrow their focus.
“Policymakers can use our findings to identify and prioritize enforcement efforts in hotspots, make improvements in infrastructure and implement policies that ensure affordable and safe drinking water — particularly for socially vulnerable communities,” said researcher Segrè Cohen.
