Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
variety of reasons, but in our attempts to do so we generally strive to attain
similar results. Most governments, for example, regulate their population to
provide direction, to manage, to monitor, and to literally govern whatever it
is they are attempting to regulate (including us). We also regulate to confine,
to control, to limit, and to restrict ourselves within certain parameters to
maintain the peace—with the goal of providing equal and positive social
conditions for us all. Regulations are not foreign to us … we are literally
driven by them from birth through our final internment—you could say that
we are literally regulated to death.
Some regulations are straightforward. The 70-mph speed limit on some
interstates is simple—the regulation establishes measurable limits. Other
regulations are not so simple, such as regulations designed to ensure the
safe and correct operation of nuclear reactors that are complex and difficult
to meet. Whether straightforward or complex, however, enforcement pres-
ents special problems. As to safe drinking water regulations, we can only
hope that the regulations in place to ensure our safety and health are more
effectively enforced than that 70-mph speed limit.
In this chapter, we discuss U.S. federal regulations designed to protect our
health and well-being: the so-called drinking water regulations. Control of
the quality of our drinking water is accomplished by establishing certain
regulations, which in turn require compliance within an established set of
guidelines or parameters. The guidelines are the regulations themselves; the
parameters are the water quality factors important to providing drinking
water that is safe and palatable.
Why Regulate?
Consider what might be an absurd question: “Why do we need to regu-
late water quality?” And another question that is perhaps a bit more logi-
cal: “Aren't we already regulated enough?” The first question requires a
compound answer, the explanation of which we provide in this chapter—
we hope it will clear the water, so to speak. The second question? We must
answer this question with another question: “When it comes to ensuring a
safe and palatable drinking water supply, are we (or can we be) regulated
enough?” In this text, we concentrate on answering the first question because
it goes to the heart of our discussion—the necessity of providing safe and
palatable drinking water to the user.
Again, why do we need to regulate water quality? Let's start at the begin-
ning. In the beginning (the ancient beginning), humans really had no reason
to give water quality much of a thought. Normally, nearly any water supply
available was only nominally naturally polluted. Exceptions existed, of course;
for example, a prehistoric human flattened out on the ground alongside a
