Survey: Black And Hispanic Americans Not Confident In Tap Water
Following a survey of more than 40 million Americans who are being served by water systems that have recently violated the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), it’s clear that there is a racial divide in the confidence that consumers place in drinking water utilities.
According to the survey, “…43% of white Americans say that they are ‘very confident’ in their tap water, while only 24% of Black Americans, and 19% of Hispanic Americans indicate the same degree of confidence,” Forbes reported. “At the opposite extreme, only 10% of white Americans say they are ‘not confident at all’ in the quality of their tap water.”
Forbes also noted that U.S. EPA data from 2016 to 2019 indicates that public water systems with SDWA violations are 40 percent more likely to serve people of color and take longer to return to compliant operations within communities of color. Naturally, this could influence these communities’ perceptions of these systems.
The COVID-19 pandemic has been making this distrust in tap water among people of color even more apparent, as millions have turned to bottled supplies.
“During the pandemic, the consumption of bottled water increased across all groups, with sales of bottle water recording an increase of 57% during the month of March 2020 — but nowhere was this trend more prevalent than among people of color,” per Forbes. “Since the pandemic, a quarter of Black Americans have been drinking more bottled water in general, while fewer than 10% of white Americans have changed their habits, with 62% of white Americans indicating that they have not changed the way that they drink water at all.”
There may be reason to believe this disparity will narrow in the near future. Addressing the inequality in drinking water services to vulnerable communities in the U.S. has become a focus for some policymakers.
“The only true remediation of such a large scale problem is through public policy,” Forbes reported. “The Water Affordability, Transparency, Equity, and Reliability (WATER) Act of 2021 … seeks to fix the water crisis in the United States by providing $34.85 billion a year to drinking water and wastewater improvements and more than $1 billion a year to update water infrastructure in public schools.”
Water systems around the country are doubtlessly hopeful that these funds will help them serve their communities and maintain their trust.
To read more about how drinking water systems communicate with consumers, visit Water Online’s Consumer Outreach Solutions Center.