Maintaining Drinking Water Quality Essay - 3167 Words

26,895 Boston Marathon runners run down streets for miles and miles. Whenever a runner gets tired they run to a side spot and chug a glass of fresh, clean water. However, clean drinking water is not so redily available to everyone in America. There are nearly 55,000 community water systems in this country, supplying water to meet the drinking needs of more than 90 percent of the U.S. population. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines a community water source as one that consistently provides water to at least twenty-five percent for at least sixty days during the course of a year. In Washington, D.C., our nations capital, clean drinking water is a very serious issue. During the summer of 2014, the residents of†¦show more content†¦Defining BAT is not always straightforward, and it must also be recognized that BAT changes with time. Application of the minimum-degradation approach must be flexible, and care must be taken to ensure that protecting water quality re mains as the priority rather than simply forcing all discharges to have a particular level of treatment. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Contamination of drinking water originates in different ways depending on the source of the drinking water, the type of contamination, and the method of water supply delivery (i.e. type of plumbing). Groundwater, which may be used as a source of drinking water, often becomes contaminated from percolation of toxics through contaminated soil. Alternatively, contaminated runoff and direct discharges contaminate surface water, which may also be used as a drinking water source. Drinking water may become contaminated through the leaching of lead from plumbing systems. Finally, the intentional addition of substances to treat the water supply, such as chlorine, also represent a significant source of drinking water contamination in public water supply systems. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;The potential dose of a toxic compound resulting from drinking water consumption is a function of consumption rate and contaminant consideration in the water. It is preferable that consumption rate be determined for the population of interest. If such population-specific data are unavailable, however, generic ratesShow MoreRelatedLiterature Review On Drinking Fountains1734 Words   |  7 Pages REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE Immersive research on drinking fountains especially in our 21st century society with diverse cultural behavior created different studies conducting different behavioral and health related impacts on drinking fountains. 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