Project Update: National Drinking Water Explorer Tool
More than fifty years after the passing of the Safe Drinking Water Act (external link), our nation’s drinking water systems can be difficult for communities across the country to understand. In communities where systems reliably deliver safe drinking water, people often take their services for granted, but in communities where water quality or reliability is uncertain, people may ask hard questions, seek out answers, and advocate for change, often without the resources they need to get support for better services. With this in mind, EPIC launched an effort to develop a National Drinking Water Explorer Tool with the goal to bring together different datasets, identify potential data gaps, and create opportunities for partnership and collaboration. Let’s dive into what we’ve done so far and what’s up next.
Over the past two months, EPIC engaged with people from different backgrounds and experiences in the drinking water space to better understand what safe, durable, affordable, and quality drinking water means to them. The learnings from this process will serve as guideposts for the design and development of the national tool. The tool will help researchers, policy makers, technical assistance providers, advocates, and the general public better understand the drinking water system landscape across our country. Building upon the foundation laid by the tool (external link) EPIC developed for the state of Texas, we hope this national tool will help people better understand their drinking water systems based on their areas of interest or concern.
During the discovery sessions, we had the opportunity to speak with more than 35 people who work on drinking water policy, communications, data and tools development, advocacy, academic research, state and federal government staff, and community advocates for people with drinking water concerns. From these conversations, more than a dozen themes emerged. Here are some of the highlights:
Drinking water service is complicated and hyper-local. Most people don’t know a lot about their drinking water, and it can be hard to learn more because of the typical approach of using very scientific language and insider terminology. Additionally, the staff tasked with communicating about drinking water aren’t trained in communications.
Comparisons are key. Enabling people to see how their drinking water system compares to similar systems will help people to better understand their drinking water systems and should lead to more informed policies and advocacy around affordability, reliability, and trust.
It is mostly good news. While most water systems are currently meeting regulatory requirements, we should be building more resilience through infrastructure and staffing investments, especially in small, under-resourced, and rural communities. By highlighting some of these successful systems, we can help people better understand the complexities and nuances of drinking water.
Water is political. Oftentimes, elected officials are the decision makers on drinking water investments and operations, which politicizes the process. This may delay necessary investments because there is little political will to support the rate increases needed to support those investments. Local or state rules and budgets may hamper efforts to address affordability concerns. Lack of political will makes it hard to do something different; no one wants to take the risk and do something innovative.
Not having to know about your drinking water is a privilege. While most people are fortunate to not have to think twice about their drinking water, people with concerns about their water often become highly knowledgeable.
All of the research learnings from our engagement will contribute to our tool development and policy recommendations. These themes will guide our work as we move into the design and development phase of the project as well as making any future policy recommendations.
Up next on our engagement roadmap, EPIC is developing and will be seeking feedback on a prototype of the tool. If you are interested in participating in a usability session, get in touch (external link), and we can schedule some time on our calendars. We will walk you through a series of tasks and get your early feedback on the usability, features and functions, and potential data sources that could inform the first version of the tool. We expect to officially launch the tool in the first quarter of 2026.
We are looking to hold those sessions during the next few months. Have questions? Reach out to kameron@policyinnovation.org (email).
