Americans drink many gallons of tap water every day, but many of them question the safety of tap water every day as well. In fact, devices have been created to filter tap water directly before reaching cups. It's true; however, that the provision and management of safe drinking water throughout the United States have seen triumphs in public health since the beginning of the 20th century. Although, advances in water treatment, source water protection efforts, and the presence of local, state, and federal regulatory protection have developed over the years, water in the United States still contain chemical, microbiological, and other types of contaminants at detectable and at times harmful levels. This in addition to the growth of microbial pathogens that can resist traditional water treatment practices have led to the question: Where and how should the U.S. government focus its attention and limited resources to ensure safe drinking water supplies for the future? To deal with these issues the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) Amendments of 1996 Safe included a request that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) publish a list of unregulated chemical and microbial contaminants and contaminant groups every five years that are or could pose risks in the drinking water of public water systems. The first list, called the Drinking Water Contaminant Candidate List (CCL), was published in March 1998. The main function of the CCL is to provide the basis for deciding whether to regulate at least five new contaminants from the CCL every five years. However, since additional research and monitoring need to be conducted for most of the contaminants on the 1998 CCL, the list is also used to prioritize these related activities. Classifying Drinking Water Contaminants for Regulatory Consideration is the third report by the Committee on Dinking Water Contaminants with the purpose of providing advice regarding the setting of priorities among drinking water contaminants in order to identify those contaminants that pose the greatest threats to public health. The committee is comprised of 14 volunteer experts in water treatment engineering, toxicology, public health, epidemiology, water and analytical chemistry, risk assessment, risk communication, public water system operations, and microbiology and is jointly overseen by the National Research Council's (NRC'S) Water Science and Technology Board and Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology. In this report the committee needed to readdress its second report as well as explore the feasibility of developing and using mechanisms for identifying emerging microbial pathogens for research and regulatory activities. The promotion of public health remains the guiding principle of the committee's recommendations and conclusions in this report.

With an increasing population, use of new and diverse chemicals that can enter the water supply, and emergence of new microbial pathogens, the U.S. federal government is faced with a regulatory dilemma: Where should it focus its attention and limited resources to ensure safe drinking water supplies for the future? Identifying Future Drinking Water Contaminants is based on a 1998 workshop on emerging drinking water contaminants. It includes a dozen papers that were presented on new and emerging microbiological and chemical drinking water contaminants, associated analytical and water treatment methods for their detection and removal, and existing and proposed environmental databases to assist in their proactive identification and regulation. The papers are preceded by a conceptual approach and related recommendations to EPA for the periodic creation of future Drinking Water Contaminant Candidate Lists (CCLsâ€"produced every five yearsâ€"include currently unregulated chemical and microbiological substances that are known or anticipated to occur in public water systems and that may pose health risks).

This volume describes the methods used in the surveillance of drinking water quality in the light of the special problems of small-community supplies, particularly in developing countries, and outlines the strategies necessary to ensure that surveillance is effective.

Expanding water reuse-the use of treated wastewater for beneficial purposes including irrigation, industrial uses, and drinking water augmentation-could significantly increase the nation's total available water resources. Water Reuse presents a portfolio of treatment options available to mitigate water quality issues in reclaimed water along with new analysis suggesting that the risk of exposure to certain microbial and chemical contaminants from drinking reclaimed water does not appear to be any higher than the risk experienced in at least some current drinking water treatment systems, and may be orders of magnitude lower. This report recommends adjustments to the federal regulatory framework that could enhance public health protection for both planned and unplanned (or de facto) reuse and increase public confidence in water reuse.

Legionnaires' disease, a pneumonia caused by the Legionella bacterium, is the leading cause of reported waterborne disease outbreaks in the United States. Legionella occur naturally in water from many different environmental sources, but grow rapidly in the warm, stagnant conditions that can be found in engineered water systems such as cooling towers, building plumbing, and hot tubs. Humans are primarily exposed to Legionella through inhalation of contaminated aerosols into the respiratory system. Legionnaires' disease can be fatal, with between 3 and 33 percent of Legionella infections leading to death, and studies show the incidence of Legionnaires' disease in the United States increased five-fold from 2000 to 2017. Management of Legionella in Water Systems reviews the state of science on Legionella contamination of water systems, specifically the ecology and diagnosis. This report explores the process of transmission via water systems, quantification, prevention and control, and policy and training issues that affect the incidence of Legionnaires' disease. It also analyzes existing knowledge gaps and recommends research priorities moving forward.

Protecting and maintaining water distributions systems is crucial to ensuring high quality drinking water. Distribution systems-consisting of pipes, pumps, valves, storage tanks, reservoirs, meters, fittings, and other hydraulic appurtenances-carry drinking water from a centralized treatment plant or well supplies to consumers' taps. Spanning almost 1 million miles in the United States, distribution systems represent the vast majority of physical infrastructure for water supplies, and thus constitute the primary management challenge from both an operational and public health standpoint. Recent data on waterborne disease outbreaks suggest that distribution systems remain a source of contamination that has yet to be fully addressed. This report evaluates approaches for risk characterization and recent data, and it identifies a variety of strategies that could be considered to reduce the risks posed by water-quality deteriorating events in distribution systems. Particular attention is given to backflow events via cross connections, the potential for contamination of the distribution system during construction and repair activities, maintenance of storage facilities, and the role of premise plumbing in public health risk. The report also identifies advances in detection, monitoring and modeling, analytical methods, and research and development opportunities that will enable the water supply industry to further reduce risks associated with drinking water distribution systems.

Growing demands for water in many parts of the nation are fueling the search for new approaches to sustainable water management, including how best to store water. Society has historically relied on dams and reservoirs, but problems such as high evaporation rates and a lack of suitable land for dam construction are driving interest in the prospect of storing water underground. Managed underground storage should be considered a valuable tool in a water manager's portfolio, although it poses its own unique challenges that need to be addressed through research and regulatory measures.

Recent and forecasted advances in microbiology, molecular biology, and analytical chemistry have made it timely to reassess the current paradigm of relying predominantly or exclusively on traditional bacterial indicators for all types of waterborne pathogens. Nonetheless, indicator approaches will still be required for the foreseeable future because it is not practical or feasible to monitor for the complete spectrum of microorganisms that may occur in water, and many known pathogens are difficult to detect directly and reliably in water samples. This comprehensive report recommends the development and use of a "tool box" approach by the U.S Environmental Protection Agency and others for assessing microbial water quality in which available indicator organisms (and/or pathogens in some cases) and detection method(s) are matched to the requirements of a particular application. The report further recommends the use of a phased, three-level monitoring framework to support the selection of indicators and indicator approaches.Â