People drink and use water every day. The majority of Americans are provided with high quality drinking water. About 90% of
people in the United States (262 million in 2006) get their water from a community water system versus a smaller water supply
such as a household well. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets regulations for treating and monitoring drinking
water delivered by community water systems. There are water quality standards and monitoring requirements for over 90 contaminants.
Drinking water protection programs play a critical role in ensuring high quality drinking water and in protecting the public's
health.
Because people drink and use water every day, contaminants in drinking water have the potential to affect many people. The
number of people served by a community water system varies from twenty-five to hundreds of thousands. Community water systems
in the U.S. provide among the highest quality drinking water in the world. However, some contaminants are present at low levels,
and it is still possible that drinking water can become contaminated at higher levels. If a person is exposed to a high enough
level of a contaminant, they may become ill. Effects can be short-term or long-term and depend on the specific contaminant,
the level of contaminant in the water, and the person's individual susceptibility. As additional information is obtained about
how specific contaminants affect public health, standards may change in order to better protect public health.
The purpose of this indicator is to show how many people drink water that has regulations on contaminant levels to reduce
health-risks. The proportion of the population served by regulated community water supplies provides a measure of the estimated
proportion of people in the state that are served by water that is being monitored for public health protection.
Public Community Water Systems: Percentage of Population Served, Utah, 2007
Data Notes
This data represents estimates based on the number of connections served by community water systems that report to the Utah
Department of Environmental Quality.
Data reported to other sources, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, may differ slightly.
This data does not include information about private water sources such as well water.
This data has been adjusted to include tribal populations in San Juan and Uintah counties. Tribal populations do not report
to the UDEQ but instead report to the EPA. This adjustment was done in order to more accurately represent the percentage of
people using a monitored community water system versus private water supplies in Utah.
This map was made using an interval break method called "natural breaks" where classes are based on natural groupings inherent
in the data.
Data Sources
Utah Department of Environmental Quality, Division of Drinking Water, Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS).
Population Estimates: Utah Governor's Office of Planning and Budget.
A community water system is a public water system which serves at least 15 service connections used by year-round residents
or regularly serves at least 25 year-round residents.
How We Calculated the Rates
Numerator:
Rate/Number: Estimated population in each community water system based on number of connections. Estimations provided by UDEQ.
Denominator:
Rate: 2007 midyear population.
Number: Not applicable.
Page Content Updated On 03/05/2012,
Published on 03/05/2012
Utah Environmental Public Health Tracking Network, Utah Department of Health, P.O. Box 142104, Salt Lake City, UT 84114-2104, Telephone: 801-538-6191, Fax: 801-538-6564, Email:
eep@utah.gov
The information provided above is from the Utah Department of Health's Center for
Health Data IBIS-PH web site (http://ibis.health.utah.gov). The information published
on this website may be reproduced without permission. Please use the following citation:
"Retrieved
Sat, 25 May 2013 7:42:19
from Utah Department of
Health, Center for Health Data, Indicator-Based Information System for Public Health Web
site: http://ibis.health.utah.gov".
