Disparities in Water Quality in Indian Country

Abstract

Tribal Nations in the United States are afflicted by a number of disparities including health, socioeconomics, education, and contaminant exposure to name a few. To understand drinking water quality disparities, we analyzed Safe Drinking Water Act violations in Indian Country found in the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO) and compared them to violations in non‐tribal areas of the same state for the time period 2014 – 2017. The violations assessed were total point accumulations per year per 1,000 customers, health‐based maximum contaminant limit (MCL), reporting and monitoring, and public notice for each state reporting tribal data. Violation point disparities were evident, as tribal facilities acquired nearly six times the points of the national average. In some states, health‐based tribal water quality was better than in non‐tribal communities, however Arizona, Iowa, Idaho, Montana, Utah, and Wyoming had MCL violations affecting a greater percentage of tribal populations than non‐tribal. Nation‐wide, monitoring and reporting violations affected tribal communities at nearly twice the rate of non‐tribal customers. Public notice reporting was high and comparable for both tribal and non‐tribal facilities. Finally, a comparison of small drinking water facilities, under which ∼97% of the surveyed tribal drinking water falls, confirmed state‐wide disparities. Solutions for the apparent disparities in Indian Country and on non‐tribal lands may be as simple as rectifying monitoring and reporting violations, though this correction will not shift the overall water quality difference. Addressing MCL and treatment violations is the next step to reduce the disparity.

Trends in microbiological drinking water quality violations across the United States

“…PWSs with a primacy agency type of 'territory' or 'tribal' were not included because these communities have experienced injustices related to water quality and often face administrative challenges and therefore deserve to be studied separately. 18,26 Using the SDWIS, all health-based violations data were downloaded, which includes health-based violations of over 90 contaminants. In the advanced search options of the SDWIS, year was set to '2020', quarter was set to '1', activity status was set to 'All', and is health based was set to 'Yes'.…”

Unregulated and Emerging Contaminants in Tribal Water

“…Results are reported by the EPA, providing information on compliance, violations, and remedial actions taken, where necessary (EPA 2017a). Often, Tribal public water systems (PWS) are small facilities (<3,300 persons served), which may have issues in elevated violations for health‐related requirements, monitoring, reporting, and notifications (Rubin 2013; ConroyBen and Richard 2018).…”

Environmental Federalism in Indian Country: Sovereignty, Primacy, and Environmental Protection

“…Tribal governments have struggled to assert their sovereignty with respect to a federal government that has repeatedly asserted its plenary authority over tribal lands and waters (Wilkins & Stark, 2011). A pair of recent studies indicates that tribes have endured “systemic regulatory neglect of environmental implementation” (Conroy‐Ben & Richard, 2018; Teodoro, Haider & Switzer, 2018, p. 55).…”