Disparities in community water system compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act

Statman-Weil, Zoe; Nanus, Leora; Wilkinson, Nancy Lee

doi:10.1016/j.apgeog.2020.102264

Cited by 9 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Although there is a growing consensus that the lack of diversity in geosciences presents an inequity requiring action (King et al 2018), decades of research, policies, and projects have shown that diversifying water resource disciplines remains a challenge (Layne 2004;Neal et al 2014;Zwarteveen and Boelens 2014;Kane and Tomer 2018;Hegde 2020). Previous DEIJ research has focused mainly on disparities in water resources access, impact of water hazards, and workforce composition (VanDerslice 2011; Balazs and Ray 2014;Liang 2016;Schaider et al 2019;Statman-Weil et al 2020). However, review of the literature…”

Section: Journal Of Contemporary Water Research and Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice in Water Dialogues: A Review and Conceptualization

Williams

Eden

Megdal

et al. 2023

Contemporary Water Research

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In the United States, the lack of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) in water governance and management has been identified as a serious problem that affects the validity of decisions. Because water governance and management institutions, processes, and practices at all scales involve dialogue, it is important to understand DEIJ in water dialogues. This paper reports on the results of a systematic literature survey that was undertaken to guide efforts by The University of Arizona Water Resources Research Center to improve diversity and inclusion in its engagement practices and outreach strategies. Three questions are explored: 1) How is DEIJ defined, conceptualized, and measured in water dialogues?, 2) How does a lack of DEIJ in water dialogues affect water‐related outcomes and actors?, and 3) What are the approaches that can be used to increase DEIJ in water dialogues, especially with respect to underrepresented groups? The review synthesizes definitions of DEIJ and examines theories and methods from the literatures on discourse, diversity, social learning, and environmental justice. The lens of dialogue focused these disparate literatures on how people with diverse voices can be engaged and enabled to effectively participate in water dialogues. Despite the paucity of DEIJ literature relating to water resources in general, and to water dialogues more specifically, the review identified characteristics of DEIJ, factors that contribute to DEIJ issues, general lessons, and pathways that apply to increasing DEIJ in water dialogue participation. Further, this paper articulates a conceptual framework for understanding and addressing DEIJ failures in water dialogues. A concept of “just water dialogues” emerged that integrates insights from the literature reviewed with notions of environmental justice to help with identifying and resolving “water dialogue justice” (i.e., DEIJ failures). Review results suggest that DEIJ in water resources dialogues depends on the distribution of knowledge resources, and on broader issues that include cultural, political, and other often ignored contextual factors. Importantly, addressing DEIJ problems through the creation and maintenance of just water dialogues requires tackling power imbalances, enhancing individual and organizational capacity, and building bridges through effective engagement of diverse voices, especially those of underrepresented groups. Strategies that have demonstrated effectiveness in other contexts are highlighted, and future research needed to improve practices to enhance DEIJ in water dialogues is outlined.

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Section: Journal Of Contemporary Water Research and Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice in Water Dialogues: A Review and Conceptualization

Williams

Eden

Megdal

et al. 2023

Contemporary Water Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Some are limited by small sample size. Evidence of disparities is found in some studies (Balazs et al, 2011(Balazs et al, , 2012Conroy-Ben & Richard, 2018;Delpla et al, 2015;Eichelberger, 2010;Hrudey, 2008;Stone et al, 2007;, but not in others (Cory & Rahman, 2009;Flanagan et al, 2016;Statman-Weil et al, 2020). Selection of an aggregated unit of analysis, beyond the water system level, could mask differences in water quality.…”

Section: Research Impact Statementmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Besides nationwide analyses, several location‐specific studies offer mixed evidence of disparities in drinking water quality by race, ethnicity, and/or income (Balazs et al, 2012; Delpla et al, 2015; Flanagan et al, 2016; Statman‐Weil et al, 2020). Some are limited by small sample size.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disparities in drinking water compliance: Implications for incorporating equity into regulatory practices

Allaire

Acquah

2022

AWWA Water Science

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Disparities in drinking water quality pose harm to public health across the United States. Yet, few studies have systematically analyzed disproportionate exposure to impaired drinking water. This study sheds light on disparities in healthbased drinking water violations and the shortcomings of regulatory assessment that only considers equity in terms of variation in compliance across system size. We examine the relationship between health-based violations, utility size, and socioeconomic factors, using probit regression and a balanced panel dataset of 1693 community water systems in California from 2000 to 2018. Demographics of water systems are developed using areal weighting. We find evidence of water equity concerns.Violation rates are several times higher at systems serving low-income areas and communities of color. These disparities are present even in models stratified by size of service population. Our findings highlight that equity in environmental regulation could be improved by considering factors beyond system scale.

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“…To achieve equity in drinking water, more diverse data should be included in the decision-making process. Importantly, not all studies have found consistent relationships between these variables (e.g., Mueller and Gasteyer, Statman-Weil et al), 21 , 23 indicating that these relationships may be place-based and influenced by the spatial scale at which the study was conducted (e.g., county, public water system, census tract). 18 , 21 , 23 , 24 …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“… 29 , 31 , 57 In recent years, the associations between community attributes and their environmental health outcomes have been increasingly investigated. 18 , 20 , 23 , 39 , 40 , 58 − 61 While these works do not propose an index, they use attributes in a similar manner to examine or compare an outcome through time and space. Moreover, they emphasize that an entire population is not uniform and that different people and communities face varying likelihoods of negative health consequences following exposures.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improved Decision-Making: A Sociotechnical Utility-Based Framework for Drinking Water Investment

et al. 2022

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To achieve the goals of the Safe Drinking Water Act, state and local water authorities need to make decisions about where to direct limited funding for infrastructure improvements and currently do so in the absence of adequate evaluative metrics. We developed a framework grounded in utility theory that compares trade-offs explicitly and broadens the factors considered in prioritizing resource allocations. Relevant existing indices were reviewed to identify data applicable to drinking water decision-making. A utility-theory-based decision analysis framework was developed and applied to evaluate how different objectives affect funding decisions for lead service line replacement (LSLR) programs in Pennsylvania and Michigan, United States. The decision framework incorporates drinking water quality characteristics with community and environmental quality attributes. We compare additive and multiplicative model structures, different weights, and spatial scales. Our decision framework showed that the inclusion of additional data beyond what is usually considered in LSLR decisions could change the top 10 counties or public water systems prioritized. Further, the counties or water systems in the top 10 were influenced by the model structure and weights. Prioritization changed based on which data were included, and has implications for the use of evaluative metrics beyond traditional water system data.

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Disparities in community water system compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act

Cited by 9 publications

References 15 publications

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice in Water Dialogues: A Review and Conceptualization

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice in Water Dialogues: A Review and Conceptualization

Disparities in drinking water compliance: Implications for incorporating equity into regulatory practices

Improved Decision-Making: A Sociotechnical Utility-Based Framework for Drinking Water Investment

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