The paper – Microbial Health Risks of Regulated Drinking Waters in the US – is focused on a comparison of risk of public drinking water and bottled water, using data and statistics from a variety of sources, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and presentations from a 2009 drinking water symposium at Yale University.
The paper concludes that, it is clear that as a consequence of the differences in regulations, distribution systems, operating (manufacturing) practices, and microbial standards of quality, public drinking water supplies present a substantially higher human risk than do bottled waters for illness due to waterborne organisms.
The quality of drinking water in the US is extensively monitored and regulated by federal, state and local agencies, yet a close examination of public system drinking water and bottled water processing and distribution procedures reveals striking differences that could explain why consumers have safety concerns regarding tap water.
Tap water and bottled water are regulated by two different agencies: the EPA regulates public water system water (tap water) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates bottled water.
By federal law, the FDA regulations governing the safety and quality of bottled water must be at least as stringent as the EPA standards that govern tap water. And, in some very important cases like lead, coliform bacteria and E. coli, bottled water regulations are substantially more stringent.
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