Consumer Confidence Reports

EPA requires community water systems to deliver annual drinking water quality reports to their customers. These reports enable Americans to make practical, knowledgeable decisions about their health and their environment.

The annual drinking water report:

  • Provides customers with water quality information from the previous calendar year.‍

  • Must be distributed to consumers by July 1st each year.

  • Supplements public notification that water systems must provide to their customers upon discovering any violation of a contaminant standard.

Smaller water systems may be able to distribute the information through newspapers or by other means. Larger water systems must post their reports on the Internet to make the reports easily accessible to all consumers.

What type of information is in the report?

Each report must provide consumers with the following basic information about their drinking water:

  • The lake, river, aquifer, or other source of the drinking water;

  • A brief summary of the risk of contamination of the local drinking water source;

  • The regulated contaminant found in local drinking water;

  • The potential health effects of any contaminant detected in violation of an EPA health standard;

  • An accounting of the system's actions to restore safe drinking water;

  • An educational statement for vulnerable populations about avoiding Cryptosporidium;

  • Educational information on nitrate, arsenic, or lead in areas where these contaminants may be a concern;

  • Phone numbers of additional sources of information, including the water system;

  • EPA's Safe Drinking Water Hotline number 1-800-426-4791.

The Safe Drinking Water Act and the Consumer Confidence Report Rule (CCR Rule) allow states the flexibility to set alternative report requirements but the rule does set baseline standards to ensure that all reports include the same basic information.

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Tara Kakaty