March 2020 Direct From CDC/Environmental Health Services
Direct From CDC/Environmental Health Services Column
March 2020 Journal of Environmental Health (Volume 82, Number 7)
Editor's Note: NEHA strives to provide up-to-date and relevant information on environmental health and to build partnerships in the profession. In pursuit of these goals, we feature a column on environmental health services from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in every issue of the Journal.
In these columns, authors from CDC's Water, Food, and Environmental Health Services Branch, as well as guest authors, will share insights and information about environmental health programs, trends, issues, and resources. The conclusions of these columns are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official position of CDC.
Creating a Comprehensive Data Set of Private Wells and Well Vulnerability in New York
Ursula Lauper, MA MPH, New York State Department of Health
Martin Zartarian, MS, New York State Department of Health
Chelsea Hogan, New York State Department of Health
Braden Savage, New York State Department of Health
David Dziewulski, PhD, New York State Department of Health
Description
Many states struggle with the lack of data on water sources and drinking water systems that are not regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). In the U.S., most unregulated systems are private wells. While New York regulations provide additional coverage for non-SDWA regulated wells with 5–14 service connections and fewer than 25 users, an estimated 1 million sites serving approximately 4 million residents across the state rely on unregulated private wells for their potable water. Systems not regulated by SDWA do not have consistent operation, monitoring, or reporting requirements and have not been thoroughly evaluated for their potential to contribute to the occurrence of waterborne disease. There is currently an information gap among private well users about possible harmful exposures or hazards, vulnerabilities of the water sources to contamination, treatment, and assessment of health outcomes.
Considering these issues and with funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Safe Water for Community Health (Safe WATCH) Program, the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) set about to create a more comprehensive private well data set that includes relevant, colocated vulnerabilities. This month's column explores how NYSDOH created a comprehensive data set of private wells and well vulnerabilities, as well as how this information has been used and any future updates.
Read the March 2020 JEH Direct From CDC/EHS Column in Full
CREATING A COMPREHENSIVE DATA SET OF PRIVATE WELLS AND WELL VULNERABILITY IN NEW YORK (PDF)