What’s special about the Safe Drinking Water Act 50th Anniversary and Colorado?

Dear Aqua Answers,

When I read the recent Program Manager message about the 50th Anniversary of the Safe Drinking Water Act, I wondered how Colorado has specifically fared on that journey? Please let me know. Thanks,

Fan Attic

Dear Fan,

Thanks so much for your question! Indeed, a journey it has been. President Ford signed the Safe Drinking Water Act on December 16, 1974 after passage in both houses of Congress. President Ford had deep connections in Colorado, particularly in Eagle County. Ski runs at Vail and Beaver Creek ski resorts are named in his honor. But the story of safe drinking water in Colorado goes back much further than 50 years.

Before we were a state, typhoid and cholera were common killers in Colorado Territory and Denver was known as the filthiest U.S city. In 1890 almost 300 people in Denver died from typhoid when the population was 10 times less than today. This is not a count of people sick, but people dead! Drinking water filtration and disinfection eliminated typhoid deaths in Denver by 1940.

But waterborne disease outbreaks continued in Colorado even after the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) became law with 40 outbreaks in the 1980s alone. Indeed implementing the SDWA in Colorado has been very challenging. EPA conducted an audit of what was then called Colorado’s Water Supply Program in 1974 and found that Colorado experienced “Disease outbreaks due to deficiencies at water systems” and that “Colorado is not meeting its responsibility” as a “direct result of lack of resources.” Over the next 20 years, the resource situation did not improve sufficiently relative to the workload attached to maintaining primacy (the authority to enforce the SDWA). In the early 1990s, EPA began the process of formally stripping primacy from Colorado due to “many problems with implementation and enforcement” directly “attributable to inadequate resources.” The program got a few more resources in that decade and hung onto primacy, but struggled again with the new rules that came in after the 1996 SDWA amendments. None of the rules was adopted on time, and in 2005 the Rocky Mountain News ran a front-page story stating that the program’s “staff shortage threatens the state’s future water supply.” Finally, by the end of the 2000s, things started to turn around; the program gained funding and resources from both state and federal funding sources. 

Unfortunately, disease outbreaks continued in Colorado up to 2008 when 1,300 people got sick and 1 person died in Alamosa. This event triggered big changes in the Safe Drinking Water Program and water systems across the state, and no regulated water systems have had an outbreak since. But outbreaks are a challenging metric to measure safety because so many epidemiological variables are involved. We believe this chart of E. coli violations by decade since the 1990s better reflects our progress. E. coli violations in Colorado are now rare and most of them in the 2020s have been in water systems that were previously unregulated. 

Undoubtedly, we have made great progress in Colorado in improving tap water safety. Our tap water in Colorado is safer than ever. We have adopted all new EPA rules adopted on time since the early 2000s. This is what EPA has said about Colorado’s program in recent audits:

• Colorado “manages a very effective drinking water program.”
• “The State continues to maintain good data quality ….”
• “EPA, once again, commends” Colorado “for … taking formal enforcement actions.” 

But as we move forward into 2025, the Safe Drinking Water Program and water utilities in general face considerable challenges spread over a number of areas. This is a partial list of challenges we will be facing over the next few years:

• Climate change
• Cybersecurity threats
• New federal rules involving lead, PFAS and the Consumer Confidence Reporting (CCR) rule
• Additional new rules expected to be finalized or drafted in 2025 including the Water System Restructuring Rule, M/DBP Rules and Perchlorate Rule.
• Struggling small systems including mobile home parks
• Aging workforce issues
• Increased demand for assistance and funding
• Aging infrastructure
• Addressing Environmental Justice
• Enhanced public and media scrutiny
• Emerging contaminants

Funding needs are substantial to address these challenges. We’ve seen great federal investment via the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), which Colorado provided match funding to gain. But the BIL funding is slated to end in a few years, and Congressionally directed spending has led to considerable cuts in the base Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF) that we normally rely on to support both the Safe Drinking Water Program and community infrastructure needs across Colorado. We must not let history repeat itself and allow a lack of investment to risk drinking water safety. 

To secure the needed investments in drinking water infrastructure: human, regulatory and constructed. We need public trust and confidence that this funding is merited and beneficial. We believe that adopting an industry-wide Culture of Health can support this goal. 

What is culture?

• Culture is a shared belief that connects our past, present and future. 
• Culture is a way of life. It’s how we do things.
• Culture is about our shared experiences, stories and history.
• Culture shapes our behavioral norms and institutions

Thus a Culture of Health in the drinking water industry means that we look at our daily routines and emergencies through a lens of protecting people’s health. We are an industry that works 24/7/365 to provide safe drinking water to everyone, and crucially to maintain societal functionality via sanitation and fire fighting. We are relentless!

Thanks for everything you have been doing to protect public health in Colorado. Remember:

We are all vital public health infrastructure!!

Sincerely,

Aqua Answers