Drinking Water Monitoring - The Drinking Water - page 185

requirements for all public water systems that use groundwater sources at
risk of microbial contamination; they are now required to take corrective
action to protect consumers from harmful bacteria and viruses. Monitoring
is a key element of this risk-targeted approach.
Note: Compliance monitoring ensures that systems already providing
99.99% (4-log) inactivation, removal, or a state-approved combination of
inactivation and removal of viruses are achieving this level of treatment.
DID YoU KNoW?
Drinking water must be monitored to provide adequate control of the
entire water drawing, treatment, and conveyance system. Adequate
control is defined as monitoring employed to assess the current level
of water quality so action can be taken to maintain the required level
(whatever that might be).
We define water quality monitoring as the sampling and analysis of water
constituents and conditions. When we monitor, we collect data. As a monitor-
ing program is developed, deciding the reason for collecting the information
is important. The reasons for gathering it are defined by establishing a set of
objectives, which includes a description of who will collect the information.
It may surprise you to know that today the majority of people collecting data
are volunteers, not necessarily professional drinking water practitioners.
These volunteers have a vested interest in their local stream, lake, or other
body of water and in many cases are proving they can successfully carry out
a water quality monitoring program.
Is the Water Good or Bad?*
To answer the question of whether the water is good or bad, we must factor
in two requirements. First, we return to the basic principles of water qual-
ity monitoring—sampling and analyzing water constituents and conditions.
These constituents may include
* Much of the information presented in the following sections is adapted from USEPA, Voluntee r
Stream Monitoring: A Methods Manual , EPA 841-8-97-003, U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency, Washington, DC, 1997; Spellman, F.R., The Science of Water , 2nd ed., CRC Press, Boca
Raton, FL, 2007.